Macro photo of a mushroom framed all around with grass

View my incredible Dream Land photo gallery. This is a collection of photos produced with a vintage Soviet made lens, the Helios 44-2. Check out the full Dream Land gallery on Zenfolio which is the gallery hosting and print order service I use.

These photos evoke a sense of dreaming. They're great to see via the web but they really shine when printed out very large. The swirly bokeh of the vintage lens, the colors it renders, the subjects, all of these things come together to make you think about dreaming these scenes. I really hope you all enjoy them. Please contact me to let me know your thoughts and of course please order prints of these. My suggestion would be to order Dream Land prints of at least 16x20 inches to really get the full effect and to see the incredible shapes and dreamy swirls herein.

Here are some samples. Enjoy!

Vintage Lens

The Helios 44-2 Vintage Lens is a very important part of what makes these photos special. It does that partly by having a very fast aperture resulting in a shallow depth of field which means when things fall out of focus they do so quickly. There is a real 3D pop to the photos and seriously small DOF which allows some things to appear like they're coming out of nowhere. The Bokeh is so unique and cool as well.

The swirly nature of the bokeh balls as they reach edge and are squished into almond shapes is a quality that a lot of vintage lenses have. In fact it was something that many manufacturers tried really hard to get rid of. You can understand why and if they didn't this look would be very common. Thankfully they did get rid of it making these lenses really unique and cool. Unlike some of the other lenses that have swirly bokeh my copy of the Helios 44-2 also has some other unique qualities like these small diamond shapes that appear on nearly in-focus spectral highlights when fully open.

Needless to say I LOVE this lens! I hope you'll love the results too. If you'd like to see any of these images larger please let me know. I'm happy to meet you and show you a larger format print so you can fall in love with them like I am. All of my fine art prints are orderable with a frame as well. I have several to choose from so if you're interested let me know that as well.

More Information

Do you want more information about creating dreamy photos like these or on other photography topics? Consider signing up for one of my photography classes near Pittsburgh or an online class. Join my monthly mailing list to receive loads of great information about photography in your inbox once a month. Contact me to ask me anything or to get more information on my fine art photography, event and portrait photography, or any other subject you want to know more about or comment on.