I have just found Cee’s Photography blog, where amongst other challenges, she hosts a Black & White one. The current theme is “Flowers”, so I dutifully went out into our courtyard where there is a strelitzia in flower. I did take several shots in colour, but decided to set the camera onto Monochrome and took a couple of photos.
This is the SOOC shot…
I cannot remember all the edits I did, but for the following picture I added a soft white overlay, which lightened the image and brought out the contrasts a bit more…
Do go over to Cee’s blog and have a look at some of the other entries.
Ramblings and Thoughts 
Beautifully captured!