It's a very interesting question.
I started out (back in the late sixties) shooting black and white, mainly because it was all I could afford (I was at school, had a darkroom, could process my own cheaply, and there were no cheap mini-labs for colour processing then). But I was never that good at it - I just didn't see in b&w.
I converted to using colour transparency film in the seventies (Kodachrome 25 - wonderful), and pretty much stuck with it, and I ended up through the eighties and nineties travelling a lot around SE Asia and taking lots and lots of colour photos. This was all using SLRs. But I always envied b&w photographers - there always seemed to be more art, more emotion, in good b&w shots - but I just didn't see in b&w.
And then only recently, wowed by the idea of the new Cosina Voigtlander super-wide lenses (I always liked wides over the years, but could never afford wider than a 24) and by special deals from Robert White, I got a 15mm lens with a Bessa-L (followed not long after by a 21mm and another Bessa-L). I'd always had hankerings after rangefinder cameras - always eyed up the unaffordable Leicas whenever I saw them in duty-free shops - and with a Bessa-L I almost had one.
Then I discovered RFF and learned how good and cheap some of the old Soviet gear was, I got Russian GAS, and I now have five FSU bodies and a bunch of lenses. And it just seemed natural to try b&w in them, so I got some developing tanks and other bits cheap from eBay, and had a go. And I found to my amazement that I can do it - I can see in b&w now. I don't know how, but I suspect that during all thase years of careful composition I have to some extent mastered the concepts of line and form, and that is what I now see in the viewfinder - colour just isn't necessary any more.
I've just done a quick check, and four bodies have got b&w film in (2 FSU bodies, an Olympus OM2, and a Ricoh 500G), and only one has colour (an Olympus OM10 with print film for snapshots - it's been in it for months).
And I just love b&w now. Digital photo manipulation won't do, and no taking the colour out of colour shots, because it isn't the same - it just doesn't look the same as a proper silver emulsion developed properly and shot with a nice lens. Though curiously, I do think that scanning negatives can capture the quality of b&w, and produce results that manipulating colour shots cannot match.
In fact, only today I was scanning some shots I did with my Olympus 50mm f1.4 'silvernose' wide open (it's an old single coated lens that has a bit of a pale yellow cast, and which I bought specifically for b&w), and the tonal quality is beautiful - something that you just can't do in colour.
Now, when my Bessa-R with 35/2.5 arrives... 😀
