Am I in Color?

As I continue to consider my photographic “voice,” one of the biggest challenges I feel like I am facing is whether or not to include color images in my work. I love black and white images, I find them much more artful and evocative of the days before image manipulation software started turning photography into a digital playground for artists, content creators, and media commerce.

The image I’ve included with this blog is a great example of my dilemma. The color caste in the lefthand image was very much manipulated by me, to contrast the warm red-orange of the car with the wall behind it … which originally came up as slightly blue-toned, so I filtered the entire image to include a muted yellow-green tone. And, I think that solution worked out well.

But I still like seeing the image in monochrome, with the body of the car and dirt in the lower-right corner providing an almost brooding depth in contrast to the lighter wall behind it.

Both options have merit. For now, my inner voice is telling me to stick with monochrome for my artful works and street photography (with exceptions), and feel emboldened to play with color more for candid, outdoor, and portrait images (with exceptions).