Great first assignment.
You’ve accomplished exactly what was asked from you for this assignment. You’ve taken an otherwise lifeless object and you’ve dramatized it by using different technical and artistic ideas.
In my opinion the most dramatic change made is the sense of depth in the image. Because of your position and a slightly shallow depth of field in the beauty photograph, the image appears more three dimensional. The key sticking out into the foreground provides a sense of depth that your “beast” photograph doesn’t have. There is a flatness to your “beast” image that is corrected with your “beauty” image.
That being said, your beast image isn’t bad. The composition is clean, the 4 walls of free of distracting amputations (i.e. cutting off secondary elements) and you have a clear and limited color palette with a central object.
In future assignments what I’d like to see, is for you to focus on the story of the image. I see the beginnings of the story in these images. I think of treasures and security, but I think you could do more visually to help draw out the visual story telling component of your photographs. For now it’s fine to focus on just composition, but in the future you’ll want to start exploring visual story telling.
Great first assignment!