I shoot everything in colour, always, even when I already know the final will be monochrome. The decision to strip colour happens later in Lightroom Classic, and it's one of the most consequential calls I make.
It's also the one I get wrong most often. I've converted entire sets to black and white, lived with them for a week, then gone back to colour because the warmth of the light was carrying half the emotional weight. The reverse happens too. A colour set that feels cluttered until I remove the chroma and the composition suddenly snaps into focus.
The Real Difference
Strip colour from a nude photograph and the body stops being flesh and becomes form. Skin stops reading as warm or cool. It becomes a surface defined entirely by how light falls across it. Shadows become shapes. The viewer's attention shifts from the sensual to the sculptural.
I can see this in the response to my own work. Images people describe as "beautiful" tend to be colour. Images they describe as "powerful" tend to be black and white. Same body, same photographer. The only variable is chroma.
I lean toward monochrome when the composition is strongly graphic. A backlit figure where edge light traces the silhouette. A model curled on a neutral floor where curves and angles form abstract patterns. Colour was competing with the geometry in those images, and removing it let the shapes win.
Colour wins when the environment is integral. Jungle Girl needs its greens. Goddess in Sunset needs that deep orange hour. Lotus Muse depends on pink petals against dark water. Converting any of those would amputate the meaning.
My process: develop the RAW fully in colour first. Full grade, final look. Then create a virtual copy in Lightroom Classic, convert to monochrome with a proper B&W mix using the individual colour channel sliders, not just a saturation drag to zero. Compare the two versions side by side on a calibrated monitor. The question isn't "does this look good in black and white?" Most competent photographs do. The question is "does monochrome reveal something colour was hiding?"
About 30% of my published work ends up monochrome. I wish it were higher. I love what black and white does to the body. But I shoot too many locations where the environment is part of the story, and those images need their colour.