very moody and strong

Whatever you do, don't let lack of originality prevent you from taking a good shot.

I wouldn't worry at all about originality, it will eventually drive you insane - assuming you aren't already. For added car trails you could take several shots and combine them using layers setting each one to 'lighten'. There's a shot I've been meaning to take for years which requires about 15 models with bowler hats... I realised the other day that now I have my remote all I'm missing is the bowler, and I'm not convinced that part it essential.

In PS CS3 you can open a stack of images into one file 'File>Scripts>Load files into stack', then use 'edit>auto align layers' to make sure they are bang on top of each other. Its the same process for making panoramas. You can then select how each layer operates, so you can set them to darken only, lighten only, multiply... loads of options - and/or you can use masks to reveal the bits you want from each one.

Colour v B&W. How long have you got? It isn't practical to try every shot both ways, so I agree with your intuition approach. You just have to go with that feeling, and once in a while you'll change your mind and decide you got it wrong. For a lot of images I don't think it really matters which you do, the only two of yours which stand out in my mind as being possibly 'wrong' are a wishy washy colour Albert Dock pic, which I know you like, which is ultimately what matters, and one of your cockle picker shots in B&W - the colour ones all looked so right. Yet the B&Ws look fine in isolation. That could well be my prob with the AD shot, it had some strong competition from the others you posted in the same set.

Black and white is a curious choice in today's world of colour. I'm sure that there is a traditionalist photographer who grew up doing their own D&P in a corner of the house who will always like to see a good b&w shot. At the other extreme is the digital man whose senses reject any concept of visible grain and who needs to be bombarded with saturated colour and HDR in every shot. There is plenty of room for both!

Out of curiosity, take a look at Ansel Adams colour work. I've seen some, but could not tell you a single thing about them, yet I have a clear mental image of a number of his classic B&Ws. But it is a pretty meaningless exercise - the man's great strength was his manipulation in the darkroom - just what would he have produced in digital?

Heck, into ramble mode. One final thought. I'm convinced that any shot can be made to work in B&W, its just that some work better in colour... but not all. I'm sure this Arc de Triomphe shot would look great in colour, but I don't look at it wishing you had done it that way. Would it be better? I think it possibly could, or to put it in stronger, more definite words... er, maybe.

With my own work I'm tending to go all out on BLACK and WHITE with next to nowt inbetween - or this colour/BW hibrid thingy. But I'm sure its just a phase!

A good link - lots of info there that I'd not read before. If nothing else, it is fascinating to think of Adams and Moholy-Nagy as contemporaries, but it also makes me want to see more of Adams colour work. It highlights how much I take colour photography for granted, whereas he was right in the pioneering stages. My view of early colour work often overlooks the technology available at the time, and, possibly more important, any degradation over the years.

Ah, it beats grumbling about Nikon's short sighted marketing and how the 60 will never be worthy of photographing the cat. Why do I read so much of that rubbish?

Great composition, regardless!

Maybe not original but nicely done regardless.

The lights look like miniatures worlds of their own, protecting the great Arc, it's a phenomenal photo and I don't care how many times it's been taken...

I think Lorraine articulated it best for me. (or I'm just too damn lazy to put it into my own words LOL) Very fascinating reading, however, between you and jkjond. I'm not sure you can use Elements for layering. It does have it's draw backs. I really think you should consider buying the full version of Photoshop. It really is a digital darkroom. ;-)

Very cool shot. The lights are wonderful stars.

Not original but very well captured with the star lights

I very much like the light here. Wonderful shot.

Thanks for posting this and for starting some discussion on b&w and color. For me, I don't see that they are interchangeable because they require (as Ansel Adams was suggesting in the quote above) a different way of thinking about what the image can speak. So it doesn't seem realistic to shoot in color and, if one doesn't like the results, to then try reprocessing it in b&w as if a good b&w photo is simply a "failed" color one (or the reverse). Each requires its own set of skills and, more importantly, photographic vision, which is why (in my opinion) you don't see many of the great photographers excelling in both color and b&w.
Regarding the "originality" of this shot, I wonder why that should be relevant unless one is trying to sell images. If art is for the self, to help the self come into more immediate contact with the thing photographed, then one is always original insomuch as one is taking the image for the first time. If we all had to be original to the rest of the world, most everyone on this blog, myself included, would have to put down the camera (another cat picture or another sunset? another winter scene? another mountain valley or old man in a peculiar hat?) The point, it seems to me, is not originality in the rather pedestrian sense of producing an image that has never been seen before. It's in the act of photography -- the act of giving yourself to the image -- itself. You've never taken that photograph before. Isn't that enough? Photography, it seems, is not an image; it's really about the process of seeing that leads to one.

To GJC - I like the concept of questioning whether a good B&W is a failed colour photo, or reverse. So I started by looking at your portfolio here... but you don't have any images which I would even consider changing to B&W. I'm not sure why not, maybe because there is some truth in your idea, which shows through in your work. So I looked at my own shots on flickr, the 10 which I like best http://www.flickr.com/photos/leechypics/sets/72157600213351510/

These are a complete mix of straight black and white, traditional black and white, monochrome with a hint of colour retained, traditional colour and enhanced colour. None were not taken with any processing in mind at the time (other than the montage), nor for commercial reasons. Now most of these could have worked if reprocessed - though I think the two traditional black and whites are the only two which may be dramatically improved if reprocessed... which rather fits in with what you said to Ian in the first place. Maybe we do live in an increasingly colourful world and the use of at least some colour can enhance an image. But I don't see either of those as failed black and whites.

The other point you raised was concerning the difference between commercial photography and art. My opinion is that commercial photography is a rather predictable and formulaic entity. OK, there are some exceptional commercial photos, but for the most part a solid commercial shot is of the 'chocolate box' variety where traditional representation is king. They may be very nice images, but overall they lack any interpretation and personal statement from the photographer, they are solely concerned about being in the right place at the right time and presenting exactly what they saw. Something which is also mentioned in Ian's link.