Why are black and white photographs so mysterious and captivating? My guess is that when we view black and white images, we are using only our rods to percieve the image.

Rods are light receptive structures on our retinas that respond to intensity -- the amount of light. They are what entable our night vision. Cones, on the other hand, allow us to percieve color. However, they aren't sensitive enough to percieve color at night, so rods are doing most of the work after the sun goes down.

Night time is mysterious and dangerous. We have evolved to be afraid of the night. We rely primarily on light to understand the world around us, and no sun puts us at a serious disadvantage.

When we look at black and white images, we are looking at a lit-up night -- a strange scene where we can know much more than we should be able to with the incoming information. Our rods tell us that we are experiencing a kind of night, yet we can percieve much more detail than we normally do at night. Anything that comes within our gaze has all the mysterious aura of being about at night, yet we can somehow understand it. I believe this is why a black and white image are so magical.