When I look at black and white photos I do not "see" or imagine colors. What I see is line, form, shape, texture, tonality, shadow and contrast, but not red, green, and blue. I don't care what the "real" colors are. B&W often allows me to see and appreciate greater amounts of detail without the distraction of color. Viewing a well done monochrome image is a very different visual and visceral experience than viewing the same image in color and can have a stronger dramatic impact on my emotions than a color version could. I find that some images work better in color, some work equally well in color and B&W, and others give superior results when shot in B&W.

Thank you all for your responses to my B&W topic. I do appreciate what Hoggers are saying regarding tonal qualities and uncomplicated shapes etc. However, I find most B&W pics to be harsh and often stark, certainly not friendly. I don't like harsh and stark. Harsh and stark can be cruel - so let's not get too used to it.
As a mainly landscape photographer I like to view the better world, not the slow destruction of it by man. and would suggest that there is as much, if not more, "tonal quality" in color as in B&W. Color also better affords my goal of providing an illusion of 3D within my 2D landscape pics.
It might be as well to remember that white light is made up of all the colors.

When I look at black and white photos I do not "see" or imagine colors. What I see is line, form, shape, texture, tonality, shadow and contrast, but not red, green, and blue. I don't care what the "real" colors are. B&W often allows me to see and appreciate greater amounts of detail without the distraction of color. Viewing a well done monochrome image is a very different visual and visceral experience than viewing the same image in color and can have a stronger dramatic impact on my emotions than a color version could. I find that some images work better in color, some work equally well in color and B&W, and others give superior results when shot in B&W.

Several of the classic photographers referred to what they called "chalk and soot" images. (And not favorably.) Those are almost never really attractive and are many times the result of photographers who do not understand light and tonality. They can also be what we see when folks casually desaturate a nice color image and call it black and white photography. The other extreme is an image with only bland mid tones and no "punch" anywhere to be found.

Like much else, black and white photography is an art (or at the very least a craft) that must be learned and practiced. There's not much automatic about it.

When I look at black and white photos I do not "see" or imagine colors. What I see is line, form, shape, texture, tonality, shadow and contrast, but not red, green, and blue. I don't care what the "real" colors are. B&W often allows me to see and appreciate greater amounts of detail without the distraction of color. Viewing a well done monochrome image is a very different visual and visceral experience than viewing the same image in color and can have a stronger dramatic impact on my emotions than a color version could. I find that some images work better in color, some work equally well in color and B&W, and others give superior results when shot in B&W.

With all due respect I love your post, especially since you are on record from a couple of days ago saying you did not like black and white photos. I can respect that. Many people do not. But some of us do, a great many of us like black and white photos. When done well, a goal that often eludes me, they are more demonstrative of what is going on, more demonstrative of the differences in light and shadow that color photos sometimes just cannot get across. A pure white cloud over a shadowed landscape as submitted by someone like member, Bob Malarz, or an approaching storm can look much more dramatic in black and white than in color.

Let's not forget that landscapes look great to many people because of the color. Take the color from many sunsets and sunrises and you do not have such a great photo. The color is what makes the photo in many cases. For me that is the truth. But a dynamic powerful sunrise or sunset in black and white displays another type of photograph where color does not matter.

I won't drag this out any farther. You like color photos. I like color AND black and white. Surely there is room for both types in our photography world.

Dennis

Following Selmslie’s topic today (Thu16th) re Sunny 16, he posted a very nice lakeside color pic, and included a B&W version. But in B&W what do we really see, and what do we imagine? When we view B&W do we see the black skies or the black water in the lake - or grass in the same dreary black and grey? - I don’t think so – what we see is what we imagine - i.e. blue skies and blue water and green grass. But we cannot correctly imagine the tones and more subtle colors of the day – e.g. is the Acer tree green or has it turned to it's Autumn red?