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Interesting, ABERS.... in my club I run a 'friendly' competition monthly and this month's was just for B&W - no 'theme' as such. About a quarter of the 72 entries were in 'Grayscale', only a handful showed a good histogram and I should think that many just thought "Oh, here's a decent picture, I'll make in B&W" - regardless of how the composition looked. In the last few days I've crammed a few links and general monochrome advice into our website's tutorial section.
The ease of making a good B&W - especially with the help of something like Nik Silver Efex - makes modern digital B&W even more viable than it was with film - but it makes us realise 'how much craft went into the art' in the past, and with our favourite early photographers.
Good point about the public choice being for 'pretty' pictures. But does that mean that the general public should know more about photography or should the photographs just appeal, whatever the visual and graphical 'experience' of the viewer? We often have 'graphic design' people - art school graduates etc - in to judge our competitions and, unless they're over 50, they don't really 'get' B&W. So perhaps the appreciation of B&W depends on previous experience.
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