Rejected photos

Assuming they were refused for Quality/Technical issues, your focus could be sharper. Use a wider depth-of-field. 

Were they rejected for quality issues? I like the first one most, since the subject is composed with more context and placed in a specific environment.  I'm on my consumer-grade laptop, which doesn't display the greatest detail, but the histogram on the second one shows the highlights could be lowered and the shadows opened up.

Hello,

One comment I can make is that you should remove the shadow.