To Color Or Not To Color

I'm so glad that January and February are behind us!  I haven't blogged much because frankly, there's not much going on.  I am working on some furniture makeovers, but I'm not going to blog about them until my whole room is done.  So, to stay on the band wagon, I've been linking up to Tracy's blog parties.  This week she's featuring black and white photos.

While I'm not a huge photo editor, and generally like full color pictures, there are just certain pictures that look really great in black and white.  When I do edit black and white, I almost always add a vignette.  I don't know why, I just love the effect it has on the picture.  Sometimes I adjust the highlights and shadows, but my favorite thing to do is add a red filter.  That doesn't work on every picture, but as always, it's fun to just play and experiment to see what looks best.  Occasionally, I like to add some grain, too. 

Here are a few of my favorites from the last year:

I wasn't crazy about this picture in full color, but when I turned it B&W, I totally fell in love with it!

This one looks great in color, but it's also very dramatic in B&W, too. 

I LOVE back lit pictures.  The sun shining on her hair and their sparkly eyes slay me.  Because this picture was so zoomed in, I didn't feel like the color version was as dramatic.  I love how the B&W brought out and softened their features. 

This picture has a lot of sun flare, which is a cool effect all alone, but with this picture, I loved how the sun flare, coupled with the B&W, made this picture look. 

This was my niece's Prom last year.  I went along on this just-for-fun-photo-shoot with my sister-in-law so that we could capture the night from two different perspectives. 

I love how this picture showcases the back of their dresses.  I added a little grain to this one, just for fun.  =) 

THIS picture is a perfect example (to me, anyway) how some pictures just HAVE to be in color!!!  It just didn't look great in B&W.  I just had to throw this one in because I LOVE how it shows that it's OK to be different.  There is SO MUCH personality in this picture! 

This is one of my SWEET, DARLING (former) daycare kids.  I LOVE this baby girl so much!  I asked her parents to allow me to practice with her when I first started learning how to shoot in manual mode.  I think I captured her so perfectly in this particular picture.  She really is this sweet and innocent!