[font color=\'#000000\']In general, I advise photographers to decide what they believe is the story they want to tell - the narrative. Then, crop anything that doesn't contribute or, especially, detracts from that narrative, such as something that draws the eye away from the true subject. (I would say that this is the case in your photo). One has to be careful in applying this rule to cases where the context - the surrounding place or activites, contribute to the narrative. One finds the latter case in much street photography. But, for other subjects I see a lot of photographers eliminating interesting complexity and ambiguity in the interests of monolithic subjects. Everything is a balancing act.[/font]