It's a great colour pic but...

I shot this picture in a tiny collection of cheese making cottages under Herodian, an artificial hill which 2000 years ago was the site of Herod's palace some 12km from Jerusalem. I had just 20 minutes there at the end of a tiring and mainly fustrating day shooting for an organisation who are interested in purchasing this site so after shooting a girls school (nightmare, not for those with sensitive ears to high pitched squeals!) and a bunch of other stuff, I ended up here. This was the first picture I took.

It makes a great colour photograph. I did practically nothing to it after raw conversion, some images just need to be left alone. But I'm a bit of a B&W snob these days having not shot colour fine art in 5 years so I had to do the conversion which was actually extremely difficult to keep the tonality true.

Here are the two versions, which do you prefer as fine art and why?

Hi Ben,

To me, they are both art and they are both fine. Go for the one which your gut feeling recommends.
As I mentioned a few times before, I only convert to bw if the color distracts or does not add value. Fwiw...

Hi, Ben,

Ben Rubinstein said:

Here are the two versions, which do you prefer as fine art and why?

Click to expand...

I don't know what "fine art" is (other than often the name of a university department).

These (like all photographs) are art, and they are both certainly fine.

I find the color one has "more value". (Perhaps it is the information engineer in me.)

Thanks.

Best regards,

Doug

Ben

Both are fine. fwiw I ony leave the colour if I think it's necessary I prefer the coour here, but you will make up your own mind. There again, fine art is for sales and that's not where I am. You may wish to have some consistency in your imaging for marketing purposes.

Mike

I specifically didn't mention my own choice and reasoning. I do prefer the B&W in that B&W has to work harder to achieve the same or better effect as colour which I believe this does. Hard to put in words, colour is easier to impress with, it has an added factor above pure composition and tonality. That however in a certain mindset in a way cheapens it as well. I like a very 'modern' look in design, architecture, etc. Very sparse, very clean, needing the fewest elements possible to make an effect. Perhaps that is why I prefer B&W photography?