Wait WTF is the Shirley Card??

Wait WTF is the Shirley Card??

These are Shirley Cards

They were used to was used by Kodak as a tool to test the color accuracy of their film and cameras. Kodak chose to use an image of a white woman, Shirley, as the standard for color accuracy, implying that white skin tones were the ideal and any deviation from that standard was incorrect.

This also effected film development for darker skin tones. The racist history of the Kodak Shirley Card continues to have an impact on photography today. For decades, the use of the Shirley Card reinforced the idea that white skin tones were the standard for peak film development. As a result, people with darker skin tones were often underrepresented or misrepresented in photographs, even to the extent of being white-washed or having their skin lightened. Photographers were not and still to an extent are not taught how to achieve accurate skin tones with photos of people with variable skin tones . Today, many camera manufacturers have worked to improve the dynamic range of their cameras and better capture a wider range of skin tones, but it's still important to be aware of these historical biases and to actively work towards creating more inclusive and accurate representation in photography.

See the podcast episode is linked below for more information about the Shirley card! Great listen whether you're a photographer or not. Transcript is also there.