I will have to say that my first impressions of it was that it didn't appeal to me, too busy. But then I will admit, the longer I looked at it, there are some patterns in that busyness that does draw one in. So there is definately something working here that you found. The light is pretty harsh, though shooting with all those shadows would make for a hard exposure. So I think some blending would be in order, and also the WB seems off.
A thought for you, could you process this underexposing for the highlights to pull them back in and just not worry about the shadow area's? They are almost totally black anyway, so what will it matter if they get totally black?
I wanted two points of view for the viewer; far away, so the swirling by the light, shadows and branches could be easily seen, and, up close enough to pass the smell test, where a great deal of simple detail can be studied.
Overall, I like the second version better. There's a few tradeoffs I feel I had to make, but will have to sit on it a few days or so and see if I think I lost what I wanted and what I can do if I have.
