Looking back at a lot of my earlier works, I cringe. Judging from the original "Lament" deviation, back in 2005 I had absolutely no concept of perspective, blending, or creating something that I thought was worth putting up. And ewww, those yellow flowers. Those were PSP tubes.
I decided to get rid of the "surreal" concept (the rip in the sky) because it was cliche and pointless. I thought of keeping the background as a cracked desert, but at the last minute chose the grass instead, just because I thought it looked better. The crow is not as dark now, the grave blends in better with the ground, the model's hair has highlights (which I thought was an improvement over the dark solid color of the original), and the background now tapers off in the distance and has depth, unlike the the background in the original.
4 years later, I'm still learning how to manipulate pictures, and I'm still having fun experimenting. I'm not yet at the skill level I would like to be, but I'm getting there...slowly.
And the '04 one even has a ground that doesn't match the perspective, you did improve a lot!
And congrats to you for placing 2nd! I had a feeling when I first saw your picture that it was going to land somewhere in the top 3. And I was right!