HDR Comparison - Roses under the canopy

I've been a proponent of HDR photography ever since my first attempt, but although I've posted some of my work (here and on flickr) I haven't shown a comparison / process photo. Last year I posted Water Song, an HDR image taken under canopy of several roses and water dripping down a bit of mesh. The image never received much attention, but it's one of my favorites because it reminds me of home/summer - My mother always keeeps flowers or roses on her deck, under a canopy - and this image was taken of just that. The deep color of the flowers combined with the drops of water is warming to me:)

I took a few different shots of this subject - Water Song being the HDR product via Photomatix - below is my favorite non-hdr shot, followed by Water Song in HDR.

Notice this is the same subject matter, but the deep reds and blacks a more distinguished in the HDR image. A lot of HDR photographs wind up looking surreal - I USUALLY aim to recreate and highlight rather than distort, fittingly the HDR image above is much more true to what the subject actually looked like than the non-hdr. It's sometimes difficult to capture the mood of a subject; I've found HDR a valuable tool both before the shot and in processing for accurately recreating a scene (especially when you don't have a super expensive camera/lens)

As with all my photos, both shots are in high res on my flickr, and are free to distribute via Creative Commons license (with attribution).