r/AnalogCommunity • u/taistolaisuus • Jul 19 '21

Kodak has deleted pictures of Xianjiang Uyghurs from their Instagram after pressure from Chinese media & commentors News/Article

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u/PartlyDave Jul 19 '21

Ironic statement from Kodak considering how entrenched film and photography (and art in general) is in politics. Photography brings dark things to light and shows the world a mirror. How many “iconic” photos have a political subtext? Are they going to come out and distance themselves from every politically associated photo in their feed? I get why they are doing it, but at least acknowledge the actual reason. Removing the post IS a political statement on its own. Who do they think they’re fooling?

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u/octopaws Jul 20 '21

In the late late 60s/70s (?) Kodak got into a lot of controversy due to their film stock not being able to render darker skin tones, whilst only appealing photography to white America. Kodak has always been in and out of political scrutiny

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u/viriconium_days Jul 20 '21

This was probably related to the fact that they didn't hire black people. It was treated as something that didn't need to be said, just an obvious fact. Black people were really allowed to live in the company town, so they didn't receive many black applicants either.

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u/rundfunk90 Jul 20 '21

And they only fixed it when wood companies started complaining about their dark wood not being rendered accurately on film.