Hi robbert, cosmonaut,
It's not about "avoiding" digital or color... I use them. It's that those, are "other things".
When photography was invented, it was a totally new game, and it involved three parts: first, the photographer had to compose with the contrast in mind only (B&W) and NOT with the colors in mind: those colors give in real life vision an emotive charge that we just discard when we go to that abstraction B&W is, and that act of discarding tonal emotions is what allows us to create a really new image: one that's different from a color recording of reality... Real photography, in its original meaning is an abstraction where there's no color. That's what's intense about it, and that's why when you hang a B&W image it gives a sensation of another world, and that's why B&W has always been considered artistic... It makes the viewer leave the real, colorful world, and makes him go into a new world.
The second part that game included, was a decision the photographer had to take regarding the amount of light he wanted to reach film or plate, and that decision was in close relation with the third part: the kind of development the photographer was going to do... It was (and is) really hard to do those three things quickly and well done! Some of us don't want a machine to do it: we like to think and decide! Photographers composed thinking of B&W contrast AND hit the shutter knowing about the scene light & contrast and the development time they had to use, ALL IN THE SAME INSTANT the hit the shutter. That's the game.
That's what in our real world meant -historically- the word photography. And that game is played by some people yet, and it's not played by other people.
When color film came, it was called color photography. When you do color photography or study color photography, dedication or study make you learn you have to compose differently for B&W and for color, because for the color photography game, it's required to think of color contrast, which is defined not by light contrast as in B&W, but by cool/warm tones contrast... That's why some of us consider absurd to compose for color and then go to grayscale "to see if it works", as we know what's important to think about in color is totally different from what's important to think about in B&W while composing... Shooting a lot in color, and then after some time checking in front of a computer if some of those images work in B&W is something some of us laugh about... If other people do it, we're OK with that... Personally I like a lot to compose for B&W... And of course composing for real color photography is something I enjoy too, because it's a different thing: more emotional than conceptual, although words are sometimes too short...
Then, a thing called "digital photography" came... Another game that allows other things when you create an image... You? Well, I'll let everyone answer that to themselves... But IN MY CASE I don't need to consider all those games are just the same game...
If any forum member wants to do it, OK...
Maybe this is a words&history thing, but color or digital photography are not photography, but color or digital photography.
Cheers,
Juan