Why do you photograph in black and white?

[Daqlon]

The world is colorful enough

[Michael Graves]

Like Katie said.....

'cause I like it. Nuff said.

[Clay Turtle]

Don't shoot alot of b&w any more but it was how I was taught when I started with 35mm & when I started shooting large format . . . guess what?
PS Just got the 5x4 Bender together & was on my way down South (Glades) stopped by & spent the night with my nephew. After supper we were talking & I ended up doing my first shot as a b&w table top of one of his model cars. It made for a nice evening at home. We did the setup on a mirror, used a Ace Hardware Calender (little short & painted out the logo). Shot it & processed the film at the kitchen sink all in one evening, we both enjoyed it.

[Frank Petronio]

Because photos of lewd, naked girls in color are called porn.

[Greg Lockrey]

Because photos of lewd, naked girls in color are called porn.

Only if they are correctly exosed and in sharp focus.

[Frank Petronio]

Porn is in sRGB too....

[Clay Turtle]

As a rule I tend to shoot the scene as it presents itself & therefore I carry (generally color slide & negative as well as b&w. As others have stated sometimes I shoot color negative but transform it to b&w because it looks better to me. Hm . . . Hadn't considered it but a digital file from a positive could be transformed into b&w as well. Hadn't really considered that idea. Hey, thanks for the thought!

[Miguel Coquis]

B&W endless "palette" have great plasticity and matches easily with my brain "matière gris" !!!
Dynamic ranges moves like Yin and Yang:-)

[eddie]

i do both.

B&W is a bit easier for me in that i can do it all very easily. i mean mixing the appropriate chemicals to printing on silver paper or VDB. i like being able to use big negatives (well, big for me). i enjoy the process from loading the holders to mixing the various chems to burning and dodging in the DR.

on the color side i enjoy shooting some of the great colors i see. sometimes that great blue sky with giant puffy clouds that are colored from white to gray to dark gray/purple just talk to me in color. i find that many great color scenes also look good in B&W. but some very busy not so good color scenes look better in B&W. the draw back is i do not do my own color printing. so that means scanning and working with PS....that is something i do not have very much knowledge in and have not learned....someday i will learn but for now i have so many other things to learn that my schedule is over full........

eddie

[Nick K]

Well, I do some things in infrared. I like the ethereal and otherworldly aspect of infrared. Possibly because it highlights the fact that what we are experiencing with this photo is a fabrication based on reality but not a representation of reality. Never thought about it much deeper than that.

But I will tell you that as of right now, I chose to not use black and white usually because I feel that color (for me) adds a very important, sometimes critical, element to my photos.