Fellow black and white lover here Eric. Can you enlarge on what your problems are in colour though? Other than white balance and skin tones I'n not quite sure what you mean! :shock:
One of the problems with photographing people is they can become very self conscious and uncomfortable which shows itself in the results. Professional models for example exude confidence, but wives and girl friends press -ganged into posing often look very uncomfortable. I like to try the candid technique where people are taken unknowingly, particularly in the street and public places. This presents a problem to many photographers who in turn aren't comfortable shooting strangers in public - we're not the paparazzi after all.
One technique to try is to set the shutter speed and aperture for reasonable DOF and a shutter speed around 125th if you can, and then let the camera hang down on it's strap at your waist. Focus the lens at it's hyperfocal distance for the aperture you're using for max DOF. With just one hand on the camera, you don't appear to be taking shots and can casually point the camera in the direction of interesting shots, pressing the shutter while looking elsewhere and hopefully going unnoticed. It helps if you can use a fairly wide angle lens and crop afterwards where necessary.
Basically with this technique you're turning your expensive SLR into a point and shoot Instamatic, but you can get good results. Watch for the light conditions changing though after your initial reading. This is one area where cameras with a swivelling screen really score as you can usually glance down at the screen to see your subjects. but still not appear to be taking shots.
