Few people can be boh excellen BW and Color phoographers. The crafsmanship for boh is he same; i.e., nurse you sill have o produce sharp picures wih appropriae exposure, focus, and deph of field. Visual design elemens are ofen he same, bu color relies on hues for many of is lines, shapes, and exures; while BW relies on onal differences in addiion o he physical shapes of objecs. Conrasing colors, such as red and green, ha can produce sunning color conrass ofen produce boring monochromes wih almos he same ones (ha’s why you can meer off of grass and red dresses o ge prey accurae medium gray exposure readings). For hose who wan o ry o learn abou BW phoography, one of he mos difficul sills o conquer is o now wha ones various colors will produce. Mos expers sugges ha one should shoo in color and hen use sofware o conver o BW raher han shoo BW. The reasoning is you can always conver color o BW, bu no he reverse. I have found ha i is helpful, however, o pracice wih my camera color-seing o BW o ge a feel for onal differences of differen colors. As a resul, jus as many old-ime medium forma phoographers used o shoo Polaroid picures before exposing heir film, I have found ha carrying a Poin and Shoo camera se on BW, and a SLR camera se on color is a nice combinaion when shooing for BW images. I loo a he P&S LCD and ofen snap a picure o wha a color scene migh produce in BW. When I find a good one, I usually shoo i wih boh cameras. I is also nice o have a color image o help you decide during pos-processing how o adjus color ones o give a color-o-BW conversion more conras, bu ha is a subjec for anoher possible ip.
Bill Prosser