Many new photographers are interested in "that swirly look" or "that old fashioned look" but don't know it's often due to the petzval lens design. There are a lot of great posts on this board showing petzval shots. If you'd like to see more, in a thumbnailed collection, there is a new group on flickr called Petzval Lens Photographs.

I encourage you to add more if you like! It's fun to compare the different ways petzvals are used: with swirl, without, sharp overall, sharp center only, soft, ....

Garrett