What is so special about black and white photography anyway?

We see black and white photography used all around us every day, in fashion magazines, on the web, in art galleries and in commercials. What is it that sets it apart from photos with color?
The art of photography is more than finding a nice scene and hitting the shutter. Selecting the technical camera settings based on what you want to tell the viewer of the photograph is one thing, but you also need to compose the scene in such a way that only the important parts are left in.

Now, you have removed every item from the scene, but still feel that something is stealing the attention from the "real" subject. Could it be that the pink shirt is creating such a strong color contrast against the bright yellow wall in the background, that we don't notice the wonderfully confident expression on the face of old man wearing the shirt?

In some situations color is just another obstacle, and you can easily remove it.

One thing is that colors can steal attention from a scene because of their inherent visibility. Another is that one color can mean very different things to different people in different cultures. So a color that would convey a feeling of happiness in one culture, could convey a feeling of sadness in another. Different religions also have different "holy" colors. All things to take into account when shooting for a global marketplace.

In our daily lives we see everything in color. A photo in black&white shows us something in a way we are not used to seeing it. So even something as normal as a face, will look more interesting, or unusual, in a black and white photo. And that remains true even if the color of the eyes, the hair or the clothes are more beautiful than the tones of gray. The choice is yours.

I think it was Ansel Adams who said "Color photography is about colors, black&white photography is about everything else".