I got an email this morning asking if I shoot B&W anymore because I always post colour photos. The answer is yes I do, at times about 1/3 as much as colour film however I seem to have some kind of personal preference for colour when it comes to my own pictures. For the last few months I have been using B&W exclusively in the Diana. There's a stack of film sitting here, I just haven't had a chance to get through all of it. Too many pictures.
Thinking about why it is that I lean towards colour for myself, I think part of it has to do with light. I just prefer muted colour and capturing certain types of light. Some people have descirbed my photos as lonely or bleak and I guess when I take B&W photos the warmth and sense of hope and beauty that I am interested in gets buried or lost. Using colour helps me maintain some kind of balance.
I think that B&W can be really good when there is a lot going on in a scene. When I have B&W film in my camera (if I remember), I point my camera at different places and scenes then I would if using colour. The image above is a good example of that. I would never have taken this photo with colour film in the camera. I would think it too busy and the light all wrong for me. I suppose I keep using B&W even though I don't post them much, as a way to push myself outside my own parametres a little bit.