Well, despite the funny colour in the first, that one at least made me want to play with it a little. I did (you say you are ok with your photos being edited, right?) ... the version is a bit surrealistic now, but in my version it becomes the more obvious that something is missing in front of the bare wall.
I find the second lacks quite a bit compositionally. His head is in the very centre of the frame, he has a bit of room to photograph into, but not really much, I would expect him to be more over on the right (no camera bag to be seen) with more room in front of him. Your frame also cuts right through his one knee and we see some of the tripod but not much - that, too, looks ... unplanned.