Composition Review - 3 Rules

Today is a special day. Not only is it my birthday, but also we did an in-class activity of taking Mr. Farley's picture and adjusting it for our three rules of composition. As a recap, my three rules are...
1. a background that doesn't blend in with the subject
2. depth of field
3. rule of thirds

This is the original image my teacher took:

And this is mine.

I just cropped the image, changed the white, shadows, clarity, vibrancy and highlights level on Camera Raw. Enjoy autumn!

Here are the URLs where from I got my rules of composition from:
depth of field

rule of thirds

a background that doesn't blend in with the subject