A pot survives the kiln or it doesn’t. The photograph is the only version that always makes it.

Priya runs a ceramics studio in Portland — wheel throwing, glaze chemistry, and an eight-week beginners’ course that fills every term with people coming straight from work. Some are three months into a hobby; some are two years into planning a second career around it.

Every term Priya photographs the shelf before a glaze firing, because the studio’s own social account needs the images and because some of those pieces will not survive the kiln. Students started asking for the photos of their own work — especially the pieces that cracked.

Priya uses Solberra to sell a photo set at the end of each course: greenware, glazed, and the finished shelf. Students get a record of everything they made, including what didn’t come out. The studio earns a little on work Priya was already doing.