In the days when film was dominant, photographers often chose between black-and-white and color. After all, once you loaded up with bw or color film, you were committed. If printing your own photographs was important, it was easier to set up a black-and white darkroom. Printing color using dye transfer or even C prints was more complex and with more demanding controls. Even when affordable drum processors and other processes like Cibachrome became available, b&w darkrooms were in the great majority. (But those who committed to a color darkroom rarely turned back to black-and-white.)
Color received its real boost in two different photo worlds - snapshots and published work. Sending your snapshots off to the drug store for processing transitioned from b&w to color. And even printed publications that had limited themselves to black-and-white, like the New York Times and Time Magazine, turned to color when it became obvious that the ability to print color ads was a necessity. Time didn’t become “the colorful newsweekly” because the news was literally colorful. Quite often, if your news picture was on a printed sheath that had color for an ad, your news picture was in color. And even if you shot in color, if you weren’t, it often ran in black-and-white.
Both the snap shooters and the great majority of commercial, advertising and journalistic shooters relied on someone else doing the processing of color film. Boy, did digital change that.
Whether you are shooting with your phone, a Leica M9 Titanium or something in between, you can now choose after the fact whether the picture will be black-and-white or color. But, the one thing that modern digital technology has not provided is which is “better.” Obviously, it’s a decision you make on a picture by picture basis or on a series of related images. But. in many cases, I’m not sure which is best.
I’d appreciate any thoughts you might have, but it may be an unanswerable question.
