1. THE 'PROBLEM' OF BLACK SKIN The Naturalization of Technological Racial Bias through the Discourse of Adobe Lightroom Presets and Wedding Photography
- Author
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Hawley, Collin
- Subjects
Image processing -- Computer programs ,Racism -- Analysis ,Skin -- Portrayals ,Wedding photography -- Technology application ,African Americans -- Portrayals ,Discourse analysis ,Image processing software ,Technology application ,Arts, visual and performing ,Adobe Lightroom (Image processing software) -- Usage - Abstract
Adobe Lightroom offers a presets tool that applies fixed or Al-powered edits to ease the process of photo editing. While some Lightroom presets purport to ideally edit for different skin tones, photographic technology has historically centered the accurate representation of white skin, as seen in the history of color balance and in contemporary metering technologies. Because of this inherent bias, Lightroom's automaticediting presets foster what Joyce E. King has described as dysconscious racism. Wedding photography, exemplified in wedding magazines, presupposes a white- or lighter-skinned subject when creating presets for the popular 'light and airy' editing style. Presets replace the surfeit of tutorials describing how to achieve balance when photographing Black skin. By using presets, photographers are made passive in the production of race through media. The stakes of this misrepresentation are not inconsequential: they devalue Black people and cement racist structures., THE VISUAL TECHNOLOGY OF THE CAMERA IS DEEPLY INTERTWINED WITH THE DEVELOPMENT of contemporary subject formations. Yet since its invention, the medium of photography has been technologically biased toward the [...]
- Published
- 2024
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