Teaching the camera to see skin colour

Just read two fascinating essays about how camera film and, later, digital cameras, were calibrated to represent white people. The essay by Syreeta McFadden is about the subject from a personal perspective: “My mom had saved up quite a bit of money to try to create a pastoral scene of domesticity of our rough and ragged family to give to loved ones. I just couldn’t understand how the camera could get us so wrong.” The other essay, by Rosie Cima, explains the technical side of this with great clarity and also provides some very interesting history.