Fantastic work.
I'd agree on the BSC photo rules - limiting to a single photo seems counter productive.
As to your figure photos - it's probably the white background that is fooling the camera into thinking it has enough light, and therefore leading to underexposed photos. It's certainly possible to take good photos with a white background, and it is a nice way of isolating the figure in the photo, but it usually takes some work to get the setup of the camera and some post production work too.