I agree with Wilbert. Since photography began, its users struggled to
produce photos that would yield desirable results for all colors, which
reflected different light into the lens and onto an emulsion.
Ansel Adams had to take into account that the dark mountains had bright sky
above and white birch trees below. His darkroom manipulations are
legendary.
Todd Webb began to photograph in the late 1930s. His first published photo
was tipped into Dorothy Norman's Civil Rights-Civil Liberties journal for
1943, "Twice a Year." It was a portrait of a young black boy who lived in
his neighborhood in Highland Park, MI, a suburb totally surrounded by
Detroit. Years later, in his book "Looking Back," talked about taking that
photo. He said the problem of photographing black skin was solved, for
him, by overexposing.
Todd Webb was not a racist, quite the opposite. He hated the inequalities
that exist in this country.
I do not know of Professor Lewis' other work, but she seems to have created
an industry by relating art to racial injustice. I don't buy it, and I
think she harms the case for racial equality by turning a technical issue
into a racial issue.
Marty Magid
