Color or Black and White?

Journey at Home Day 73

Color photography was the topic of Lesson 15 in the History of photography course that I am taking. My assignment was to create an image that is more effective in color than black and white. And then to create an image that's more effective in black and white than in color. To demonstrate my claim, I had to produce the same image in the opposite color space.

For my color image, I photographed a closeup of a taillight on one of our cars.I call it Don't Follow That Close. This image is about form created by four distinct areas—green, red, blackish, whitish. The green complements the red. When viewed in black and white, the areas aren’t as distinct and the effect of the complementary colors go away. To my eye, the image then becomes much less interesting. What do you think?

For my black and white image, I created a still life with a mask, a thermometer, some aspirin, and some Kleenix. I call this one My Worst Nightmare. The subject of this image is the fear of getting COVID-19, having an uncontrollable fever, and dying from it. There is not much color in the image, but the color that is there, to my eye, distracts. A black and white treatment emphasizes the fear and helps the viewer to focus on the unusually high number on the thermometer. Black suits death.