I've thought about it some more, and here's where I come down:
The problem with mixing color and black-and-white together is that color is so great it makes black-and-white look bad, and black-and-white is so great it makes color look bad.
They're great in different ways, is all.
Of course, great art convinces, and thus there are exceptions. In art there are always exceptions.
Mike
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Featured Comments from:
Richard: "I love classical music. I also love 1970s hard rock. I'd never listen to them back to back."
Kevin Bourque: "Once I see an image in color on the computer screen it's hard for me to 'un-see' the color when I convert it to B&W. I'm always comparing the two. If something starts out in monochrome (film in the darkroom) I'm perfectly fine since it was always that way. As Calvin's Dad explains it...."
Gordon Lewis: "I recently had to deal with this issue while selecting photos for a book I've written on street photography (to be published this June by Rocky Nook). My earlier work was all done on B&W film. My post-digital work is predominantly in color. In this case, mixing the two turned out to be less of an issue because the photos were being used mainly to illustrate particular concepts and approaches rather than to present a unified body of work.
"Another thing that helps is that the style of my B&W photos is not dramatically different from my color work. Regardless of whether I'm shooting in color or B&W, I'm still attracted to subjects with bold graphic shapes, deep shadows, distinct textures, street life, and so on. What works for me won't necessarily work for everyone, of course. All I'm saying is that mixing color and B&W sometimes can or must be done."
