I'm not that great on techincal comments, but for me, there isn't a lot of high contrast compared to other photos submitted in this challenge. Seems overly filtered in a photo editing program.
I'm not sure what contrasts you are going for with this image - it appears to have a grittiness to it that may be attributed to actually boosting the contrast on the photo though. I think its a decent photojournalistic type image, it can definitely tell a story. The colors are a bit muted but the composition is good. I gave a 5.
I was expecting to see brighter whites (or colors) to contrast with some dark blacks. In this image I see some good dark colors... but nothing that really approaches white.