Moira on the road

I realized recently that when I edit my pictures, almost always I do immediately 2 things: change to grayscale and increase contrast. Since the first pictures I took in 2004, I have had an unconscious tendency towards black and white. In fact, my favorite picture, this, is b&w and my best pictures (in my opinion at least) are b&w - check it out for yourselves. I feel that colour is, in most cases, a distraction, while b&w is essential and as such brings you to the very idea that the picture is trying to communicate. My photo teacher says that we have a common reading of b&w photography that is already associated with history, authenticity and art - that it is almost inevitable to read a b&w picture this way, because we are all educated to read it like this. It is probably true, but that doesn't dilute for me the essentiality of black and white photography. 

Black and white are the colors of photography. To me they symbolize the alternatives of hope and despair to which mankind is forever subjected. (Robert Frank)