I'm not sure if its just me, but the first one looks like it has a quantity of fisheye distortion. I'm not sure if you were shooting with a super wide lens (the .exif says you were shooting at 11mm focal length) or if you were shooting with a fisheye, but generally, at least in my personal opinion, you need to be very careful with peoples faces when you are shooting with a fisheye/super wide lens. That being said, with the exception for the distortion in the face/head area, this photo is very good. I agree with WTF? though.. It could use just a touch more fill flash. Maybe another flash behind and above camera, set to... say... 1/8 power just to fill in the shadows on his arm and face