Hi Karl, welcome to TP.
I'm sure you'll get quite a few replies and they'll not all be the same. We all like shooting different things in a different style.
B+W photography is more than just an absence of colour, as I think you've hinted at realising in your post.
There's more reliance on texture, contrast (high or low) and lines.
You don't say which model camera you have. Some allow you to take the photograph in B+W, and add different filters to strengthen or weaken certain colours. EG dialling in a an orange filter will turn blues dark and a red filter will turn blues darker, at the same time as lightening (relatively) colours that are composed of a lot of red.
However..!
It's more usual to take the pic in normal colour and convert to B+W with an image editor. This allows more control and experimentation and you still have the original colour pic to play with another way
There's even specific software that excels at this, though I use GIMP as I'm on Linux so have no experience of others.
It's an art to be able to 'see' in B+W, not everything works well.
For myself, I like things that have strong geometric lines or interesting textures. I sometimes go for a shallow DoF to bring out the subject because the lack of colour removes some of the eye's natural ability to pick out what
you intended to be the focal point.
If you're into people, B+W portraits can be very effective. Nice and contrasty for the more, erm lived-in faces, softer and low-key for the fairer sex or young people. Though of course, that's not set in stone and turning them round can be just as much fun
That's a very rough sketch of how I do it!
Experiment
Try cut flowers, red with green stems. Vegetables? Or even the old standard of still-life, the fruit bowl: pale greys of bananas, smooth-skinned apples with the textured skin of oranges. This time of year, there's nuts, too
That may seem a little mundane but I found it to be quite a good exercise to get my eye in for B+W.
Hopefully, there'll be more suggestions!
