The original is much stronger than the crop - very strong indeed. The only problem I see is that enough detail shows on the figure to make you look for more and that distracts from the composition, because it’s difficult. I don’t think reducing the figure to a silhouette as is would work because of the bulge of the backpack - again it would provoke attention and curiosity towards extraneous detail. So I’d either selectively lighten the figure or silhouette him and clone the bulge away.