A little more than a decade ago, probably around 2005 or so, I had was having a conversation with a fashion designer friend. She was so particular on her brand and wanted to make sure that her brand represented the high quality and luxury that she desired. So we got into a discussion on the internet and how differently models were portrayed based on browser searches. I was a little confused at the time because I never really considered image searches at the time so she took me on an internet scavenger hunt. She challenged me to look up swim suit models, which I did and the results showed what I typically thought— high end designer designs on professional models shot with professional photographers, touched up and edited for ads and magazines. She challenged me to look up another group of black models wearing the same thing— swim suits. The results were markedly different. The images of these Black women that came up looked like the most unprofessional, and over sexualized with heavy emphasis on T&A. The exact opposite of what came up in the prior search.
This was eye opening for me because this showed me the insidiousness of the powers that be in how they show their bias no matter how ,covert or overt it may be. When I bought my first camera in 2010 and decided that it was beauty and fashion that I wanted to shoot, I remembered that conversation that we had back then. I began to do my own research and even five years later doing that same search, things were hardly better. The biggest difference then was that cameras began to be become more widespread and affordable and everybody who called themselves photographers had access to the internet.
Now this is where the problem comes in. Come back to see part 2 of this blog.