Crop opinions sought

Just wanted to run this image by you all. It was one I probably never would of worked in CS2, but since I bought and upgraded to CS3, I'm finding more and more that images I would have passed up look much more workable - its pretty amazing...

I took this in my back yard early this spring between showers of a young pink Dogwood. I like this square crop a lot, and below you will see the original crop I worked with. I sacrificed a few of the leaves in order to reduce the emptiness of the dark background..

Thanks for any thoughts or opinions...

First crop idea:

And I did shoot these wide open at f2.8 on my 100 macro, and added some diffusion to the edges to enhance what the lens interpreted..

Ned, the second crop looks better as the petals look sharper.

- pradeep

Ned,
Cool shot there buddy. I like your second version, but what about rotating it 180 degrees? Hard to say if I like it better looking as if it was hanging or on a stem...

Love the comp of the 1st one, Ned, but prefer the apparent sharpness of the 2nd one. Looking at the 1st one, it works for me if I focus on the center of the flower where it looks the sharpest. I keep focusing there and get a sense of motion from the rest of the comp; that's pretty cool, artistically speaking. This is late night double speak! Ok, I like 'em both for different reasons....

Thanks for your comments...appreciate them!