Rejected firs time images

There is far more to image quality than resolution and pixel count. Focus, composition, artifacts, white balance, noise, etc. all need to be considered.

Exposure - too dark:

White balance - too yellow:

After adjusting the exposure, making the photo a bit lighter and adjusting the white balance:

Look at your histogram - it can give a lot of information:

This shows how your pixels are displayed from dark to light.
https://www.adobe.com/creativecloud/photography/discover/how-to-read-a-histogram.html

In your other photo, the depth of field is too small, so it ends up with very little in focus.

Understanding shallow depth of field photography | Adobe

Thank you bit for the advice. These were hand held. I will try to get better focus. 

As @yamato713108855 said, the depth of field is too shallow. Were these hand-held or on a tripod to help increase your f-stop at a slower shutter speed?

The area in focus is too small.
Try taking the picture so that a wider area is in focus.