Vibrant colors or the subtlety of BW?

[Woulretje]

This is a picture of my young cousin dressed up by my little sister (hence the off-lipstick and bright colors ). I was trying to get an 'artsy' impression of her for her mum.
The colors contrast and don't match so I'm wondering if it's best to go for a more subtle BW - however, this might take away from the picture rather than add to it. What do you think?

(click on picture to see it bigger)

Thank you for your comments!

March 7th 2010
Sony DSC-H50 (Carl Zeiss lens)
1 /125 s
f /3.5
ISO 320
no flash used

[zona5101]

I'm digging the color one!

btw, Welcome to DPS!

[KagoGrl]

I like the colour one best. Perhaps a b&w with less contrast would work better, but as is I prefer the colours. If you want to boost colours you could always play around with vibrancy and saturation in PS or similar program. Nice photo though! She looks lovely.

[gdinalamo]

I agree I like the color one. Beautiful model by the way.

[nikkichantal]

I would either boost the color in the color one or use the black and white. There is something really precious about the simplicity of the B&W....

[Wifey]

Hmmm, I think I'm going to go against the flow here and vote for the b/w version. Both are great photos, but the b/w is more striking, especially to her dark eyes! Maybe if the color had a bit different saturation? Honestly I think her mom would love both of these. . .but for an 'artistic' shot, I vote for the b/w. Nice work!

[SusanH1970]

B&W all the way! Nice conversion. The color is cute, but the colors seem to be fighting with each other. In the BW my eyes go straight to hers.

[hey joni]

B and W for me.

Did you use a general convert to grayscale or did you try converting to black and white using selective colouring (i can't remember what its called but in PS you change it to grayscale then adjust the amount of red etc and then it will selectively lighten and darken colours, but keep it black and white.

I really hope that made sense....

If you didn't, trying that may produce even better results.

[ML Photography]

The color version. No way!!! Very cool shot...

[LeeR]

I am not sure what to make of this. I have seen this image before under a different users name. Could you explain that before we proceed further?