Week 2 compare and contrast

So this week we need to pick two-three images to compare and contrast from our seven shots of one object. Well, as you can see, I picked this amazing ice sculpture of "Lovely Woman". In the top image I was trying to capture the "action" of creating the sculpture. In this image you can see the artist using a blow torch to smooth the texture of the ice. It was a hard shot. As you can see I had to shot wide frame to really see both the artist and the sculpture. Because of this I have people standing in the background of the image. It was very crowded and I made two mistakes. First it was so COLD I did not want to deal with changing lens, so I opted for a zoom. Because of all the people this proved to be an issue. My second mistake was...I should have tried a larger aperture to decrease my depth of field (DOF). If I had tried this, it might have put more focus on "Lovely Woman" and blurred out the people in the background. Instead I relied on my lens for my DOF...Live & learn:)
I liked the second image much better than the first because I feel the focus on the subject is better, with only minor distraction. However, again I should have used larger aperture. I also like how this angle shows more detail in her face. The first image was more of a head on shot, as you can see there is a great loss of detail due to light refraction.
The last image of "Lovely Woman" is much closer. I like this image best. While taking the picture I tried to think about the direction of the light and the profile of her face. As I stated above it was tough capturing a quality image because of the crowd. If I had used a wide angle lens there is a good chance I could have achieved a decrease in my DOF (I think). Overall, although I like the close up image better, I really would have loved to have gotten the entire sculpture in an image and not just parts.
I think that the perspective of my favorite photo changed the image because it captured only "Lovely Woman" and no additional distractions. When I was going through my images I realized that this was the only one I had without someone in either the back or foreground. This realization made me appreciate the simplicity of a solo portrait, like "Lovely Woman". When I get good enough maybe I can clone over the tree branches :)