B&W low light still, C&C please!

[Feather]

Hey everyone,
I got a lot of quick helpful replies to my last post, thanks! Yesterday was quite a boring and overcast day, so I decided to take some B&W photo's. These two were taken in my hallway, with not a lot of light around. The first are two little figures of owls, which I inhereted after my grandad died. The second is again, a figure, this time an egyptian cat. That one was given to me by my granny.
I was trying to capture a lonely, gloomy picture, which I think came out quite nicely. Is there anything I could do to make them better? exposure, composition etc.? All comments are welcome!

1.

40mm
1/6 s
f/4.5
ISO 1600

2.

46mm
1/6 s
f/5
ISO 1600

 

[chaosrealm93]

i like the second one better. nice composition and focus seem to be a bit sharper in the second one

 

[Dhoffman]

I also like the 2nd one better, better composition, the eyes and face are turned away but still the profile, depicting more lonliness. I think the lighting is very nice!

 

[KmH]

FWIW, making photos in B&W with a digital camera doesn't give you any control over the tonal contrast in the final image.

However by making the photos in color, and then converting to B&W with image editing software, one can have a lot of control over the tonal contrast in the final image.

 

[Breaux]

The first one suffers from too much medium-gray; not enough blacks or whites. I don't know if there is a solution to that. Like KmH says, if it was shot in color, applying color filters in editing might help.

The black cat one is excellent! The cat makes for a very bold shape.

 

[JWellman]

I like the second one as well. Along with the other suggestions I also think the first one is cropped to much on the top.

 

[Feather]

Thanks for the tips!
I don't know anything about editing so I'll go find out how to use color filters and tonal contrast. What software should I use? The only thing I use now is the basic editor in picasa.

 

[GreatPhotoRace]

I agree with what others have said. I'm immediately attracted to eyes, and the eyes in the first image is a bit out of focus. The second one is composed really well and shot nicely though! Great work

-GPR