[mattyb]

Dunno if its just me, but I get the impression that there are photographers that can make a picture more interesting if its in B&W.

What makes you choose to have the colour taken away?

[Demonhood]

i choose B&W if the focus is a bit too soft or the noise is a bit high.
i choose B&W when contrast can be accentuated for maximum effect.
i choose B&W when color (especially backgrounds) is distracting.
i choose B&W just for the hell of it.

[mattyb]

Originally Posted by Demonhood 

i choose B&W if the focus is a bit too soft or the noise is a bit high.
i choose B&W when contrast can be accentuated for maximum effect.
i choose B&W when color (especially backgrounds) is distracting.
i choose B&W just for the hell of it.

Cheers. I'll fool with some of my photos to see if they look better in b&w.

[Railroader]

Originally Posted by Demonhood 

i choose B&W when color (especially backgrounds) is distracting.

This is often the only reason for converting an image to B&W for me.

I ALWAYS shoot in color as it is easy to remove color and produce B%W.

[harbinger75]

I'm nearly a B&W purist, as I love B&W photos almost unequivocally more than color photos in most situations. I think they convey a wonderful sense of anguish, grief, stress, deep thought or any other "real" emotions.

Don't take that completely wrong, however, I take a lot of candid color photos of the kids and such, but my passion is B&W most definitely.

Just experiment wherever you want on a copy of a color photo. I'd always shoot in color and do the color conversion later in Photoshop...you'll get richer contrasting tones that way.

[Oisín]

Plus you have the ability of fine-tuning the process of B&W’ing the photo, individually controlling the different colour channels’ conversion to greyscale.

I'm nearly a B&W purist, as I love B&W photos almost unequivocally more than color photos in most situations. I think they convey a wonderful sense of anguish, grief, stress, deep thought or any other "real" emotions.

Don't take that completely wrong, however, I take a lot of candid color photos of the kids and such

This seems to hit the nail on the head for me: for anguish, grief, stress, deep thought, sadness, sorrow, etc., go B&W.

For joy, play, laughter, youth, life, happiness, etc., go (bright) colour.

[mattyb]

I really do get the impression that lots of photographers shoot a street scene or somebody in a town or a city, change it to b&w and think that its interesting. While I do think that b&w has its place, photos like this are much better in colour than b&w.

What do you guys think?

[Thorzdad]

Maybe. It depends on what you want to emphasize. Obviously, in color, you get the exciting splashes of color all through the scene, emphasizing the activity.
In BW, you would be emphasizing the details and texture of the scene. The interesting shadows and depth. It all depends on your intent. Both ways would be winners. My personal choice for that particular picture would be BW that emphasizes the incredible variety of textures and tones.

I have to note that, throughout this thread, the use of BW seems to exclusively mean "converting color photos to BW in Photoshop." While I realize that that's the way the world works today, you really are missing out on about half of what BW photography is all about if you eliminate film from the mix. To me, BW photography focuses you on what photography is about at it's most fundamental...capturing light. Shooting with film drives you to understand the mechanics and possibilities in making the shot as well as being able to think in terms of light and shadow and just how those factors will be captured.

Great thread!