Editor's note: The 2026 class of my Lightroom Classic Secrets course is open for enrollment now. Learn the tips, techniques and secrets used by the Lightroom masters. Click here for the details. Thanks for reading, Andrew.
Today I’d like to share with you some black and white flower photos from my project The End of Summer.
I’ll always present the main body of work for this project in color as that’s the natural medium for flower photography. These are my portfolio images, the ones I want the world to see.
But many of the photos also look great in black and white. I converted the photos using Lightroom Classic. I also used some of my favorite plugins: Exposure X, DxO FilmPack and Topaz Black & White Effects 2.
You can see the results of my experiments in this article. These are not portfolio images. But they’re interesting and could end up as prints or in a zine.
One of the reasons for showing you is that it demonstrates how you can take a specific brief (or project idea) and create a variety of interpretations (looks) using different developing techniques and software.
Flowers in black and white
The key to making good black and white photos from colorful subjects is to start with images that have good tonal contrast. For example, a photo of a white or yellow flower against a dark green background looks great in black and white. You don’t have to do much with it in Lightroom Classic to get a good result.
You can see how it works with the two photos below.
It also helps when your photo has interesting textures (in the sharp parts, not the blurred backgrounds) and bold, graphic compositions.
This is a creative exercise that makes you look differently at colorful subjects like flowers. It encourages you to look further and deeper than normal. You need to look past the color and focus on visual elements like shape, form, tonal contrast and texture.
Here are some more black and photos from the project.
Black and white photos in plugins
One of the challenges I set myself with plugins is to work with sets of two or three photos that go together. This is great for presentation purposes, like pairing photos across a spread in a zine or prints on the wall.
I made the photos below in Exposure X, using a lith preset as a base. Lith printing is a darkroom technique I experimented with over 20 years ago, and it’s nice to have a digital version to play with.
Topaz Black & White Effects 2 is a discontinued plug that I love using for its unique range of effects. You can use it to emulate little known printing processes like the Van Dyke Brown and Albumen processes, as well as more well known ones like Cyanotype and Platinum printing.
I made these images using Chocolate Dynamic preset from the Albumen Collection.
I made the next set of photos using DxO FilmPack, another of my favorite plugins. I started with a preset called Cappuccino and added a border and some texture. This preset doesn’t emulate a vintage printing process, this is just me having fun.
An idea for spring
I made these photos last autumn, but spring is on its way in the northern hemisphere, so you may like to try a similar idea.
A couple of years ago I noticed buds appearing on a hydrangea plant in my garden in late winter. When I looked closely I saw that the buds had a variety of interesting shapes. So I used my Lensbaby Sol 45 lens (fitted with a close-up lens) to make a series of close-up photos.
It was a fun little project that anybody can do. You can see the results below. They worked well in black and white because of the simplicity and graphic nature of the composition.
The Magic of Black & White ebook
My ebook The Magic of Black & White takes you on a journey exploring ideas like the ones in this article that help you make better black and white photos. It covers topics like composition, light, the best subjects for black and white and post-processing.
