Why do you photograph in black and white?

[Photojeep]

For those of you who choose to shoot black and white, I'm just curious why.

Personally, I find I enjoy black and white in my personal work. Perhaps it's because practically all of my commercial clients want color.

So why do you do BW?

rb

[Merg Ross]

Black and white best captures my vision. I see in black and white, and my personal work is about contrast, texture and form.

Interesting you mention that commercial work often demands color. I found the same to be true.

mergross.com

[domenico Foschi]

Why, what else is there?
I have heard of such concept as color, but I haven't been able to grasp the meaning of it fully.

Okay, the smart@$$ is gone.
For the kind of subject matter I choose and the results I want B/W is my choice.
I feel I can have a more "Playful" approach with light, which becomes an almost infinite gradation of grays.
I feel also that B/W is an easier media to grasp, to be affected by.
This is my personal view, other views are equally valid.
I throughly enjoy color work, some of it is exceptional, especially when it is about color.

[Doug Herta]

I contact print using earlier processes (Kallitype,Platinum,Palladium). I guess I choose BW because alternative processes demand it.

[Daniel_Buck]

I enjoy B&W because it gives me something other than exactly what I saw, and I get to manipulate what I do see! (color filters) Some may say that B&W is what you 'felt' instead of what you 'saw' or something like that, but I don't know if that's true for me as I'm not as 'deep' as some people are. I see in color every day when I walk down the street, looking at B&W photographs takes me away from the color and shows me something different, and I enjoy that!

On top of that with a more practical reason, B&W is so simple and cheap to process. With a combo of tri-x and HC110, it is very forgiving and is a very simple process. If I could process color the same way, and for the same price, I would probably shoot more color than I do now. But I would not give up B&W.

[Vaughn]

Sometimes I think it is just habit. Sometimes I think it is because color distracts from the forms the light creates. Sometimes I think it is because one can manipulate the shades of grays and still have an image that is understandable whereas distorted color is a barrier.

Most of the time I put the thinking aside and make images.

Vaughn

[John Kasaian]

Because B&W for me is the color of memory. I've seen some beautiful colors in nature, but I remember them in B&W as I cannot put into my memory a blue-er than blue or a greener than green or a golder than gold. Film with supersaturated colors look hokey to me and when the colors shift they look even hokey-er. B&W speaks truer, I find.
I still appreciate color photographs, but not for my own work.

[Greg Lockrey]

When I got started in photography in the late 60's B&W was just "easier" to process and it was archival. Later I found out that color was just as easy but temperature controls where more critical. All of my "fine art" photography is B&W since I enjoy manipulating the tones. Color at that time wasn't considered archival and thereby not used in fine art. That's different today, however. 99% of my business is color and 50/50 for personal work.

[Brian Schall]

I do B&W because I get to do it all: take the picture, develop the film, and print the picture. Taking the picture is only part of the fun of photography. With color, you take the picture and someone else, or some other machine, does the rest. Just isn't as much fun.

[Mark Sawyer]

Seeing and creating in black and white is a tradition and a discipline that I love and respect. It is also a medium that I have learned to understand and can relate the things I want to let out through. It's a craft and an art form. And it's beautiful.