Father and Son - Color or B&W?

[melinda.larson]

I took this photo of my husband and our sun one chilly afternoon at the beach. I really love it, but I can't decided if I like better in color or black and white? Any thoughts? I don't convert many images to black and white, and I haven't done it very often. So any suggestions to improve the black and white version are welcome.
Additionally, does the angled horizon work for you? I know that the rule is normally to keep it straight, but I decided to play around with it a little. Any thoughts?

[SwissJon]

First off.. Yes, I like the angled horizon, it works well in this shot.

Second, I like the B&W photograph.. This is likely to be a photo you keep for some time.. Colours can be improved, you can go 3D and so on, but B&W is timeless.. If it were me.. I'd keep both, but frame the B&W one.

[timjb]

Excellent, well done, congratulations!! These photos are brilliant - the slanted horizon disobeys rules, but it really works!!
As for your question - black and white or colour, i would definitely choose the black and white - the contrast is great. Did you use a black and white gradient map??

Tim

[kelstar84]

Wow, what a gorgeous shot. I like them both. The B&W one i feel expresses the emotion a bit more, only because youve taken the distraction of colour out of the shot, so i'd pick that one for the frame. The angled horizon works great in this type of shot i think. Great job. I hope some of my pics in the future turn out as great as this one.

[melinda.larson]

Thanks so much everyone. I really like the B&W one too.
Tim- I actually have no idea what a black and white gradient map is. I do very very little post-processing. I am still new to photography, and I thought it would be better to learn my camera and how to get things right SOOC before I attempt to learn PP. For the little PP I do, I use Picnik occasionally, and usually just Windows Live Photo Gallery to crop and tweak little things.

[sgeary]

I like them both..I like the b&w more but I think it needs a bit more contrast some of the white is blown out...but a great shot love the horizon being anged!