Great first assignment.
Let’s start by going through your project to see what changes you’ve made in order to help you turn your “beast” into a “beauty”. For starters, your “beast” shot has soft focus. This looks accidental and therefore distracting. The soft focus doesn’t seem to play any role in the overall visual story telling process.
However, in your corrected image, you have directed your focus towards the foreground of the frame, which allows you to help guide your audience’s eyes towards your main object. In this photograph you’ve used a shallow depth of field to further isolate your main image from the background and you’ve done this without removing the context of the environment. Great job.
What I also like about your “beauty” image is that you’re experimenting with depth and layering. In your “beast” image the composition is flat and fairly boring. You only have 1 layer and therefore the shot looks very two dimensional. However, in your “beauty” photograph, you’ve used an identifiable foreground, middle-ground and background. Incorporating these different layers helps give your photograph a sense of depth and three dimensionality which help give the photograph life.
You’ve done a great job on your first assignment. I look forward to seeing your next project!