My, my, aren't we sensitive today. Yes, if you shoot a crappy branch with fading leaves and out-of-focus berries that happens to be there, there's nothing wrong with that, though posting it might make someone question your judgment about your own work. Whether or not you're willing to be held accountable for what you post, you can't avoid being held accountable.
You do good work, Jennifer, especially on the street, which is why I call that the genre you deal with best. When you step outside street what I see mostly are snapshots. You've posted some fine photographs, but I'm still waiting for that killer shot -- the kind of thing upon which you'd be willing to hang your reputation. This one isn't it.
I suspect hanging out on "Documentary" (which ought to be re-named "Snapshots") is what leads you to produce this kind of extreme, distracting contrast. I'll say it again: the geometry is excellent, but I agree with Walter about the guy on the left. You know what I think about cropping, but this is one I'd crop. I don't agree with Walter that the guy on the right is too posed. His hostile expression is what makes the picture. A vertical, slicing off the guy on the left, and then a contrast reduction that reduces the texture in Greg's sweater and subdues his hands, so they're not the eye's grab-point, would make a different, and in my opinion, better picture. It still wouldn't be a killer, but it would be a good photograph. Unfortunately, Photoshop won't parse the Sony jpeg, or I'd demonstrate.