This is a portrait of my niece that I took with a Helios 44-2 58mm f/2 lens that had arrived the same day. I love old, manual focus lenses, both for the feel and the interesting bokeh some of them produce. Although it doesn’t achieve infinity focus on my D800, it still works well enough for portraits.

I was sat at the dining table with the patio doors behind me. My niece was sat next to me, eating her lunch, as I was fiddling with my camera. The light was very soft on her face. As I glanced up, I noticed she was vacantly staring off into the distance. I hurriedly focused the lens and took the shot; the sound of the shutter snapping her out of her daydream.

Kids, are always a challenge to photograph - especially with manual focus lenses. I’ve found candid shots invariably result in the best images. It just so happened that the opportunity presented itself, as my niece was lost in her own little world for a few moments.

Other than cropping, basic sharpening and colour tinting, nothing else was done to the image.