How to make dreamy pictures
How to make dreamy photos that could just as easily be scenes from a movie? How do you achieve that nostalgic look that almost brings a tear to your eye, as if recalling something that may have never happened...?
Many tutorials start with gear: diffusion filters, oldschool lenses, smoke machines, magical fairy lights. And okay, all of that might help. But this post is not a shopping list.
I’ll focus on one technical aspect, but only at the end.
First - let’s use what you already have: your eyes, your camera. If you’re taking pictures, you already have everything you need. Seriously.
Below, you’ll find a few simple tips you can take with you on your shoots. These are the things that make images softer, where colors start to feel like a dream, and your subjects bathe in dreamy sauce, as if they’ve just stepped out of someone’s memory.
1. Shoot at golden or blue hour for soft light and dreamy look
There’s a reason why golden hour is (almost) everyone’s favorite - it does half the work for you. The light is low, soft, and warm, gently wrapping around your subject and smoothing out harsh edges.
Blue hour, on the other hand, brings a cooler, cinematic mood that can turn even an ordinary scene into something quietly surreal.
These moments - just after sunrise or just before sunset, and the short window after the sun dips below the horizon - are when light feels less like illumination and more like atmosphere.
If you’re chasing that nostalgic, melancholy vibe in your photos, start here.
No extra gear required - just time it right, slow down, and let the light do its thing.
Tip: don’t be afraid to shoot against the light source, treat flares like your friends
2. Use longer shutter speed to incorporate movement and imperfection to the shot
A dreamy image isn’t just about how things look - it’s about how they feel, and movement brings that feeling to life.
Think of a passing car, a breeze lifting someone’s coat, or crashing waves smearing across the shoreline - these moments become more than visuals when captured with a slower shutter.
A bit of intentional blur can make your subject feel like it’s drifting through time, suspended between now and some half-remembered dream. It softens reality, strips away the clinical sharpness, and lets emotion seep into the frame.
Whether it's 1/20s handheld or slower on a tripod, that tiny shift in time can be the difference between a static photo and one that breathes.
3. Incorporate nature in your pictures - nature, especially greens are dreamy
There’s something inherently nostalgic about nature.
Trees swaying in the wind, tall grass catching golden light, mist rolling over a field - it all feels like a quiet scene from a film you once saw or maybe dreamed about.
Greens, in particular, have a softening effect. They calm the frame, fill it with texture, and invite the viewer to linger.
Even in chaotic compositions, nature brings a sense of stillness and grounding. Whether it’s a forest path, or overgrown dunes, adding natural elements helps blur the line between the real and the imagined. Let the environment breathe.
4. Shift focus, let the picture ask questions rather than answer them
Not every photo needs to hand the viewer all the answers.
Sometimes the most evocative images are the ones that hold something back.
Try focusing away from your subject — on the space in front of them, the texture of a wall behind, or a patch of light beside.
This subtle misdirection creates tension, mystery, and curiosity. It turns the photo into a quiet question: what am I looking at? why does this feel familiar?
By breaking the rules of sharp, subject-first focus, you invite the viewer to slow down and search. In dreamy photography, clarity isn't always the goal.
5. Dreamy edits - befriend a Presence panel in Lightroom
Once you’ve captured the moment, editing is where you can dial up the dream.
Lightroom’s Presence panel is your best friend here - lowering texture, clarity, and dehaze a bit will soften the frame, taking off the digital edge and replacing it with something more gentle, more cinematic.
Then, play with color. Push your tones toward the pastel — faded greens, warm pinks, dusty blues. Reduce contrast if it feels right. Let whites glow a little.
A dreamy image rarely screams for attention. Think less perfection, more mood.
A piece of gear for dreamy photos
When it comes to gear, there’s one element that almost instantly makes photos feel dreamy with very little effort.
It’s film.
Film has a softness and imperfection built into it — the grain, the way it handles highlights, the subtle shifts in color that no digital preset can quite replicate.
It doesn’t try to be perfect. It lets light spill and shadows deepen in unpredictable, often beautiful ways.
The process of shooting analog slows you down, makes you more intentional, more present - and that presence shows in the image.
Film carries a kind of nostalgia in its DNA. If you’re chasing dreamy images, it might be worth trying.
I created a guide (well, a mini-course is a better word), which will help you make more compelling, clean pictures.
It includes a little bit of theory, example images and practical tips/exercises.
Do you want to start making minimalistic, clean images that stand out? That guide is for you. And yes, it’s FREE.