I love the tones in this image, but it didn't start out in black and white. In fact it's interesting to see how an image evolves between capture and presentation.
This image in color never really connected with me, and as such I moved past it and focused on other images. During the process of editing down for the website, I revisited every photo in my catalog, so this image got a second chance.
Going back over older pictures is a common and often fruitful exercise for me. There is no telling what you might do differently given the chance. My eyes have grown accustomed to seeing black and white image potential in color photos in the time since taking this photo.
I find as I gain more experience in editing photos I want to go back and rework older photos through the filter of my recent experience and the results are almost always beneficial to the image.
In this case I switched to black and white and the photo came alive. It's good to be flexible!