Ricky Steele, Artist: Chris Calohan
If this was hanging in an art gallery, I's assume that you chose to build the white bar and the white blob into this carefully focused portrait. After all, it's already no accident that you excluded the back of his head. With that definitive approach proven, I must accept the white elements intrusions as contributing to how you want the image to be read. So I'd imagine that this man has confronted and overcome many obstacles and that he's not afraid of taking on challenges.
If the white events were indeed artifacts, then they could have been removed in Photoshop. That's such a trivial task to most folk here, so I 'd take the picture as being more edgy than most portraits, where the photographer steps back and allows more of the subject to enter the frame with there being no doubt as to the ranking of sentiments.
Asher