Leadenhall Market

Speaking just for myself, that guy in the middle of the alley is a distraction to an otherwise fine photo. Oh -- so is that piece of trash in front of him. Myself, I'd have edited both out of the photo. People might argue that doing so is "cheating", but that same scene existed without that guy and without that trash -- I just wasn't there at that time -- so I don't consider it cheating, it's still an "accurate" representation of the overall scene, just not the scene at the moment the photo was taken.

On the other hand, were I a staff photographer for a paper or magazine, that would get me fired. 😏

It is interesting to see how we see things differently. I think a person is essential to complete the scene. Without a person it is still a nice scene but not complete for me.
I dont think to remove bits from a capture is cheating. I do it time to time (mostly for cars 😉)

Absolutely agree…

It's not that there is a person there, but that it's that particular person there with that particular "pose". For example, if it had been this guy:

then it would have looked good (well, without the trash it would look good). Of course, I don't mean all zoomed in like that -- imagine the guy in the photo above in place of the guy in your photo, if that makes sense. I mean, it doesn't have to be the pose I gave an example of -- just not the pose the person in the photo had.

Of course, all my opinion, obviously. I'm sure people think similar things about all my photos, too. 😎