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Atelier.

Product

Kiln

A tableware launch photographed as a material study rather than a catalogue.

Client
Lumen Ceramics
Discipline
Product
Location
Stoke-on-Trent, England
Year
2024

The commission

Lumen make a single glaze in eleven colours. The problem with photographing them well is that the differences between the colours are real but small, and most product photography would erase exactly the qualities the studio cares about.

We built the shoot around one raking north light and a set of surfaces cut from the same clay body as the pieces themselves. Everything was shot at the same distance and the same angle, so the eleven glazes could be compared honestly across the set.

The result works both as a catalogue and as a wall of images, which is how it was eventually used in the studio's first permanent showroom.

How it was made

Challenge

Eleven glazes whose differences are subtle, a client who considered standard product lighting dishonest, and a launch that needed both e-commerce cutouts and editorial imagery from one shoot.

Approach

A fixed camera position and a single raking daylight source held constant across two days, so every piece is directly comparable. Backgrounds were cut from the same clay body, unglazed, to give the colours a truthful neighbour.

Result

A hundred and forty images covering the full range in editorial and catalogue crops, now installed as a full-height image wall in the studio's first showroom.

Sequence

01Eleven glazes, one light
02Ash glaze, raking north light
03Unglazed test tiles
04Service for six

Credits

Photography
Atelier
Set
Atelier
Client
Lumen Ceramics