>>4344033second one is better in my opinion
that said photos like these live or die based on the composition
it's still life so you don't have any excuse for not tweaking until it's perfect
personally I would have tried to find a way to further emphasize the stretch of the tissue the thorn is stuck through in the second one while maintaining the attachment of the shadow to the thorn
that and rotated the photo 90° counter-clockwise so it looks like the light was coming from above
also first one may have benefited from being in color to make up for the lack of tonal range otherwise
