Portraits at home

This is a brilliant self-portrait shrouded in mystery and full of smokey textures. The central composition works really well and the golden embellished mask does a fantastic job of pulling the eye in and anchoring the image. One eye can be seen through the mask, while the other is covered by the smoke created by an e-cigarette. It's a very powerful and impressive self-portrait that Laura should be proud of, and one worthy of first place in our Portraits at Home contest this month. Great job!

This is a wonderful newborn baby portrait from Lenka, who has cleverly took this image by getting down low and eye level with her baby to make it feel more intimate. The black and white treatment works really well and by framing the picture in such a way that allows the image to breathe with lots of active space and this also helps keep the picture light and bright. The shallow depth-of-field is ideal as this brings all of the attention to bay's captivating eyes.

This is really creative take on our 'Portraits at home' theme that shows Rebecca clearly has a very vivid imagination - putting a camera in the washing machine certainly wouldn't have been our first thought! The unique perspective works very well and I'm sure would work just as well inside of a fridge too. I think an even wider angle lens, such as a fisheye, would work more strongly to reveal more of the inside washing machine drum and also positioning the camera slightly lower down so that all of the circular opening can be seen as this would frame you much better. Overall, it's a great shot and we love the idea - keep up the good work!

Nadia's image demonstrates that you don't need fancy kit or complicated lighting setups to get fantastic portraits. She posed her stepdad Ron next to a window light to illuminate half of his face and leave the other half in shadow which makes it very moody and it's razor sharp too - so props to Nadia for dialling in a fast enough shutter speed to eliminate camera-shake. Positioning Ron's face off-centre on the left of the frame creates some active space on the right side of the frame and gives it room to breathe and it looks like Nadia took the shot at just the right moment where the light is falling perfectly across his face and creating catchlights in the eyes.