These three shots are a fascinating example of how big, broad strokes in editing can alter a photo's impact. First off, a NICE shot! Good pose, good propping, good location! The way I see things, the SOOC edit makes the pavement subtle, and does not "elevate" the pavement to the level of a subject the two edits raise the presence of the pavement to quite a big part of the shot, by making them lighter. I honestly think of these three shots, the SOOC image is the best image of the guy, and his nice truck! Why? The background is basically not a factor, the yellow truck stands out strongly, and his face and arms are pretty prominent. The ground is a solid, low-tone, neutral color. His jeans are dark, and do not draw much attention. He and the truck come directly to the forefront in the SOOC look. Your edit is okay, but the jeans legs look pretty bright.
Instagram's filters do a LOT of kind of random lightening and burning-in, and they can change substantial areas of tones, like say the pavement, or whatever, so Instagram filters are actually good demonstrations of the value of dodging and burning, and selected tonal re-mapping or enhancement/sublimation of major image areas. Your extreme edit has one thing that bugs me: overly saturated greens. That might be a personal thing, but to me, whenever I see a realllllly fake, intense, cranked-up green color in a natural world image, I cringe. Not sure why, really, but it draws my eye to a huge degree, and the really intense greens in the upper left corner of both edits really,really,really "pull my eye" away from the guy, and right to the upper left corner of the frame. But anyway, I like the way Instagram can change an image's look, and these three shots are kind of similar to Instagram, at one level, that of big, bold, broad-area shifts in color or tonality. Good post!
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