Street Photography - Color or Black & White?

Ride Like The Wind

“When you photograph people in color, you photograph their clothes. But when you photograph people in black and white, you photograph their souls!” - Ted Grant, Canadian photojournalist

The Long Walk Home

Love in the Night

When it comes to street photography, the inevitable question is "color" or "black & white". When one looks at street photography through the years, you will primarily see monochrome images. Street photography emerged in the days of film, when black and white film was less expensive and easier to develop than color film. As a result, street photography and black and white (monochrome) images became inexorably connected. Since street photography primarily focuses on people and moments of living, it became widely accepted that the benefit of shooting in monochrome was removing the distration caused by colorful objects. By eliminating the color, you're drawing attention the people, their interaction, or the story in that moment.

Taking A Stand

Alone

With the advent of digital photography, more color street photography has been appearing, and is perfectly acceptable. When does color benefit street photography? When color is part of the story. But color can be distracting, and your subject can be lost in the color as your eyes are drawn away by more colorful objects. There should be a clear purpose for color in a street photo. If color doesn't add anything to your photo, then go with monochrome.

My preference, since I'm generally shooting digital, is to shoot RAW, which gives me the option to choose color or monochrome when post processing. I tend to lean towards monochrome because it reduces the scene to content, structure and emotions, which is most important to me. I feel it forces the viewer to see a different visual perception of the scene without the "cuteness" or "whimsy" that color can falsely suggest in some photographs. Reducing a street photo to monochrome brings out a depth  that may be completely overlooked in color.

The choice of color or monochrome is really up to you. In the end, you're shooting for you first, so you have to choose the option which best reflects your vision.