Neither of these shots turned out exceptionally well. I am especially disappointed by the monkey shot. Any suggestions would be appreciated.
Not sure why you are disappointed in these shots. I love the interaction of the animal and the boy in the first frame. The sculpture in the second frame is amazing and definitely deserving of further exploration. Only thing is that I like to see neutral blacks and whites. As opposed to warm or cold tones.
I don't know which message you wanted to communicate with the first shot. I think the underexposed face of the ape emphasizes the sad feeling of this shot. When I first saw it, I could percieve in the mind of the child "Sorry, I can't do anything to get you out of there". The low and pathetic posture of the monkey tells a long story about his captivity. He seems desperate. A detail disturbs me a little bit. To the left, I can see some blond hair that has nothing to do on this picture... To answer to your last question, you could maybe have set a wider aperture, but I think it was already pretty wide, when I see the blurred background. Another option would be to set a longer exposure time, or a higher ISO (I don't know if your camera is noise-sensitive...). Post-editing is impossible, since the monkey's face is totally black. P.S. This pictures is now sleeping in my "favourite photos" folder. (Excuse me for the poor english, it's not my mother tongue)
Fill flash. If your camera has a flash built in, or you have an accessory flash, try using it. If you have manual control over the camera's aperture, and/or manual control over the flash, definately use it. It takes a bit of practice to master (I haven't yet, but I'm working on it) but the results can be quite effective. On reexamination, it appears that the monkey and the boy are separated by glass. It's important, in this case, to make sure the angle to the glass is great enough that it won't reflect back at you. This also takes some practice to learn, and sometimes a bit of luck.
