- MISSION RECAP -

• They give us those nice bright colors; they give us the greens of summers; makes you think all the world's a sunny day. – “Kodachrome,” Paul Simon

  Few things are as seemingly simple yet subtly complex as taking a photo. It requires perspective, knowing when to change the lens to better catch certain images, and controlling where the light converges to bring the image into focus. But capturing the best, most representative visualization of each individual requires a deep understanding of the subject. If one’s basic aesthetic is tied to a more or less homogenized frame of reference, certain essentials will escape you.  Said another way, the way you are used to seeing determines the way you see.

  In the early 1950s, Kodak started using a model on staff, Shirley Page, from which to develop reference photos used by technicians to balance exposure, colors, and hues—these were used wherever Kodak printers were used, which is to say, almost everywhere. While subsequent, similar-looking women were employed, starting from the first example, these so called “Shirley cards” predominantly showcased paler, white-skinned women set against a darker, prosaic background to see how their skin fared in high-contrast light. This benchmark defined whether or not the colors and exposure of a photograph were “correct” in development.

   

  

   

  Color film works by using layers of chemicals stacked on top of each other that are sensitive to different colors; a combination of various solutions is then used to develop this film after exposure to light. This creates the “color balance.” However, based on the reference cards, chemicals that would bring out more brown, red, or dark tones were generally excluded from the mix. This was due to the market for cameras and film at the time being geared almost exclusively towards white-skinned people.

  This started to become more of an issue based on two unlikely sources in the 1970s: furniture companies and chocolate makers. They were frustrated that Kodak could not capture the nuanced shading of their products. Kodak dutifully upgraded their film to the standard called for by these items, but did not address the elephant in the room. As time went on and diversity slowly became more present in mainstream media and television, the still-present shortcomings of this process became less easy to ignore. However, it was not until the 1990s that the references were expanded to include multi-racial Shirley cards featuring people of darker skin tones and more diverse heritage.

   

  

   

  At Crewcial, our unique strength is precisely what this issue’s cover image exposes, a history of inclusion. The rich diversity of our team widens the scope of our research, allowing us to gain valuable insights less calibrated lenses can’t see.  For clients and others who may lack a wider range of differentiated backgrounds, we’ve got your blind spots covered. This is who we are as a firm: one group of many different members with a common purpose contributing their individual strengths to a common goal.  In partnership with our clients, whose missions are united by a fundamental drive towards making a difference in their communities, we exist to support philanthropic capital making an impact so that it can continue to do so in perpetuity, as we see ourselves and our communities in these initiatives. By doing so, we hope each new picture developed will reflect more and more of the color and clarity that make our world so rich with possibilities.