Aloe in Daylight

During an afternoon hike in the Coconino National Forest I came across several interesting wild aloe plants. Their form and color/tones were great and I envisioned a higher contrast B&W image but the lighting was never right. Always too harsh, too direct or bleaching out the colors. I was looking at every plant I passed but wasn't pleased. 
I spotted this subject from a distance in the shade of a juniper tree but upon closer inspection there was a harsh side light reaching round the juniper that was causing a very distracting directional light low in the plant that I was "seeing" as black or dark toned. I studied this aloe from different angles, over head, left and right, hoping to get an appealing light when those wonderful summer monsoonal clouds began crossing in front of the sun diffusing the harshness. I focused on the tip of the center bud with just enough DOF to capture the close large leaf in focus that was quickly lost into the dark area in the center of the plant. I had to wait for a few clouds to pass to get just the right combo of subdued overhead and side light and snapped the shutter a few times before capturing this image. Subtle tones reaching from the edges of the image to the crisp focus of the center bud.

Aloe in Daylight