They look good Dave, like the look of the blanks. Pam does some stunning blanks.
As for photos, it sure what camera/phone you are using but if it’s a digital one the. it tends to be the white background that tricks the lens in to believing that it’s brighter than it actually is. So you often need to fool it to take a longer exposure.
You can alter it later in software but the brightness can hinder that process at times.
I have done these on my phone but if I was at home on a pc could change them to look a little better just using Microsoft’s photo editing software. Not the best but it’s free. They just need to be lighter and the photos would look great. That said we don’t need to be a photographer.
Your 1st photo looks like you have changed the aspect, try and keep them so they do t squash the pens and make them look dumpy (I keep saying that when people take photos of me, they must change the aspect making me look fat
)