When people first hear the letters HDR, they often immediatly think of over processed, over saturated images. But they are the bad ones! Quality tone mapping can be beautiful, and often captures what the human eye sees more closely than a shot 'straight out of the camera'. The human eye can perceive a greater dynamic range than is ordinarily possible with a camera. If we were to consider situations where our pupil opens and closes for varying light, our eyes can see over a range of nearly 24 f-stops. The dynamic range of a digital camera does not even approach the A/D converter's theoretical maximum; 5-9 stops is generally all one can expect from the camera.

Check out the work of Tray Ratcliff. I think his work is wonderful. 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/stuckincustoms/sets/72157603505606537/