or not?

[alavergh]

I choose black and white because, honestly, I have never done color and from all accounts, it's harder to get into. When I go out and photograph and it's a messy fall day and everything looks so 'blah' I don't want to photograph in color. In Indiana, I'm not motivated to do much in color. I searched a number of noted color photographers, and all I see when I look at their images are dated 70s stuff. I think the colors that you see tend to date the photography more easily that black and white does.

[Peter Gomena]

Black and white speaks to me, color talks at me.

[Doug Howk]

Color is a veil that obscures the photographers' two-dimensional vision of the world. Pull back the veil and we perceive its beauty thru luminosity.

[Drew Wiley]

Anyone who thinks "that" about color has yet to perceive color. "Colorful" and color are not the same thing, even though most photographers can't seem to understand that distinction.

[Tin Can]

I agree with this, most 'color' is jarring to my sense.

Black and white speaks to me, color talks at me.

[Drew Wiley]

Gosh. Too bad Manet isn't still alive. He might have an interesting reaction to the alleged inability of color to render two-dimensional luminosity. Probably would have
pulled out a pistol if he was inebriated with absinthe. I do love working in black and white for what it can do, but I equally love color (my wallet is not so balanced
in preference, however). If I live long enough, one of my goals is to help people appreciate the color of the world in ways they would have never seen before. The
other day, a lifetime outdoorsman encounters me on the trail. The drought has out all the extraordinarily delicate clay and greige colors, unobscured by grass. This
fellow knew I was using an 8x10 but couldn't figure out why. So, having already taken my shot, I started showing him what I saw in the scene. He remarked that he had hiked this very trail twice a week for the past twenty years and had never noticed that... but now that I had pointed it out, it did seem incredible to him. The average nature photographer wouldn't have seen anything either. One of my favorite old quotes is that "most photographers confuse color with noise". Maybe
that's why you don't respond to it.

[Tin Can]

I don't print color, either digitally or analog, what jars me is some 'vivid' color images, my digital cam can produce and exhibit on my calibrated monitor. Simply not my cup of tea.

As for outdoorsy, I spent my youth in the North woods and return as possible. One fellow I have read, maintains there is a (nearly) infinite amount of life in any square yard of earth, perhaps the universe.

Drew, your backyard sounds magnificent, but so is all life.

[Drew Wiley]

Shooting-wise, I can instantly switch between color and black-and-white, without any quality compromise whatsoever. In terms of darkroom time, however, it's simply not practical to do both at the same time. But in terms of attitude toward the discipline, I put just as much heart into each. Health-wise, I now restrict my
color printing considerably, since I'm allergic to RA4 chem and must carefully limit my exposure to it. In fact, I take my processing drums outdoors for the actual chemical steps, during mild weather. What matters with color is not a "saturated" versus "bland" palette, but the complex relationships between colors. What I personally hate is when photographers simply add honey and jam to sugar cubes, or conversely, when "art" photographers just try to artsyfry everything by doing
just the opposite. Both amount to visual illiteracy, in my opinion. The digital age has only made things worse. People need to stop and LOOK. ... too many are just
in a hurry to get a colorful marketable commodity - a stereotype of beauty, and miss the real thing. Or else they are distracted by the instant "gotcha" mentality
of advertising photographer - grab your attention fast, even though two days later the image gets boring. This latter flaw seems to have particularly infected the
academic art world of the moment. Not all beauty is instantly accessed.

[Peter Gomena]

It's not that I don't appreciate good color work. I love painting, and movies, and good color photography and other color media. I use color film in a ratio of about 1 roll or sheet to a dozen black-and-white rolls or sheets. I worked with color film for a dozen years in the commercial world. It's just not my preference for personal work about 90% of the time.