Post by @FishFace@piefed.social

2026-10-17 20:17 UTC

The early cameras were insensitive to all colours. That’s why you had to stand still for a long time to have your picture taken. I don’t know what specific process you’re talking about that is insensitive to red light specifically, nor why that would be problem for dark skin specifically, when both Caucasian and African skin types tend to reflect more red than other colours of light, making it a matter of exposure, not colour. Happy to be shown wrong.

Replies (2)

@Aeao@lemmy.world 2026-10-17 21:06

Silver iodide plates don’t respond to red light. That alone doesn’t cause the problem but it’s part of it. I can’t remember where I read that tho Without special lighting black people became a dark void. You could photograph them with special lighting and different techniques but that mostly wasn’t done. So I think it’s fair to say it didn’t work well for darker skin tones because in order to get a picture with similar quality you had to work a lot harder. I do agree in the later days it was more a specific caused by racism but from the beginning it was more difficult to photograph darker skin tones and no one really cared because of racism. I wasn’t caused by the racism tho.

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@Aeao@lemmy.world 2026-10-17 21:26

Here’s a quick picture with a squirming white child (moving) and a still black woman. You can still make out more features in the white child. I’m assuming as well this was done by a professional who did his best to make both people clear. Maybe it’s just my eyesight tho.

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