Is Desaturation Always Best?

With back & white photos really coming back into style, it's very easy to want to hit the 'desaturate' command every one of out snapshots. Is this always the best thing to do for our work though?

Not always.

For instance, take this photograph of the pretty little girl in black & white...

Compared to the same picture in color:

Both are very pretty, but the color looks even better.

Same with the following set:

So why do these photos look so much better in color? One reason is that they were taken outside during what's known as "The Golden Hour." This magical time of day occurs just after the sun has risen in the morning and just before the sun sets in the evening. This is the one kind of picture that rarely looks better in black & white or sepia than in color, though it's still possible to do both well.