Here is a question for you, what’s the most important element in humour? Timing. Get it?
You can know all the world’s best jokes, but unless you know how to deliver them it becomes a wasted effort.
The same is true in reverse too. There is not a lot of point in being funny unless you have something to be funny about. The message and the delivery are as important as one another.
Photography is the same; in as much as the delivery is important, the story should also be an important component too. The photo you have here is interesting from a technical perspective. I love the softness of the frame that you have created between using the pin-hole lens and also the convex lens. It looks great. The colour palette is also really interesting.
What I think you have lost among all of this though, is the message.
You mention that this image was made in one of the alleyways in town. A lonely figure going about his daily routine but within the softness and the flare we really do not get to embrace too much of the story. In short, you have lost the message in the technique.
This is not to say you cannot apply exactly the same techniques to another image and make it successful. If you were going to do this again though, I would probably be more defined in the actual content of the image. Perhaps treat this same idea as a portrait with the old main nearer to the camera and facing you.
Life goes on
