Color or B/W?

This tree sits up the hill from Old Stone House, a part of the Manassas National Battlefield Park. Which do you prefer, color or b/w?

Note that "neither" is not an option!

Comments

[Stacey]

Color. I would also be very curious to see the black & white version overlaid with repetitive lines of color.

[AAS]

black & white

[Dave P.]

Color

[p]

without question: color
this is an extraordinary photo btw

[Matt]

By far the color one. And I also second Stacey's comment about the color/B&W idea. But as it stands, color all the way here.

[meghan]

black and white. i like the patterns in the grass better without color.

[Michael Fitts]

color

[lou]

Color. Why did you change the format between the two?

[J.T. Kirkland]

Thanks everyone for your comments. I agree with the conclusion most of you all have come to... that is, that color works better. At least, in the format provided. Initially the B/W version worked better for me seen at full size on my monitor. This smaller version loses a lot of detail. I think I'll have to print both to see what I'm really working with.

Lou - When I made the file B/W, the sky lost a lot of detail. I pushed it a bit more and totally wiped out the sky. This made me think of Sugimoto's seascapes so I cropped the image so that half was grass and half was washed-out sky. I think that provides a foundation for the image that is then thrown off by the tree in the top off. For me it provides some tension, but also balances the grass on the bottom.

Maybe I'll try to post larger images and we'll see if you feel the same.

Thanks!