When you strip color out of an image you force the viewer to sit with the thing itself. The light. The texture. The weight of a face. Color gives you somewhere to go, something to get distracted by. Black and white removes the exit. You have to stay in the frame.
I shoot on film and I think that matters here specifically. There's a grain to black and white film that digital can't replicate. It's not noise. It's not a filter. It's evidence. Evidence that light actually touched something physical to make this image exist. That feels important to me. That feels honest.
I also think black and white does something particular to memory. When I look at old photographs of my family, photographs from Jamaica, from South Florida, from before I was born, a lot of them are black and white. Not because color didn't exist but because that's just what photographs looked like then. So for me shooting in black and white is partly about connecting to that lineage. Saying this image belongs to a longer continuum of people being seen.
It's also just quieter. The world is loud and color is part of that loudness. Sometimes I want to make something that asks you to slow down. Something that doesn't compete for your attention but earns it.
Black and white is how I do that.