Black and White

This is one of the pictures from my trip to Ireland last spring. I have been going through looking at a lot of my archived pictures. This picture I originally shot in color and decided today that it would look cool in black and white. I manipulated the contrast and highlights a little but to make it look spookier. It got me thinking about why I don't shoot in black and white. Shooting in black and white, especially digitally, is difficult. It is more of a mindset. Black and white is all about contrast, shadows, lighting. When Im shooting, of course I am thinking about exposure, angles, light etc, but I don't think that I am really looking for black and white photographs. I feel like so many people now just upload their pictures in their computer and put them in photoshop and desaturate them to make them "artsy".
Why is black and white artsy, and is it really as easy as just desaturating images in photoshop. I want to be able to think in black and white. I think I just need to go out and shoot more. That is the most important thing that I am learning.
I love photographing people in black and white. Its fun to make a portrait free of distractions like color. I am going to keep up with my one portrait session a week and I am want to shoot some of them in black and white. I think that I have a lot to learn about black and white photography.
This felt very rambly. I hope that it makes sense. Oh well.

On another note, I have been noticing myself looking for photographs everywhere. I run in the mornings and I find myself "photographing" without my camera all of the time. I wish I could take my camera with me when I run. There are so many interesting views early in the morning. I think I am going to go out and photograph early in the morning a couple times this week....