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The Clay Hole University · Selling Your Work

Photographing Pottery with a Window and a PhonePrintable pottery guide

Photographing your pottery on paper: a window, a sheet of white board, light from one side, a set of six frames per pot, and a log for every pot you shoot.

$5.005 guides, 1 free
  • Skill level: Beginner
  • 23 printable pages
  • 5 video picks
  • 8-question quiz + answer key

Flip through the free sample
  • Instant download
  • Prints on any printer
  • The lesson stays free
The printable, at a glance

What is the Photographing Pottery with a Window and a Phone printable guide?

It is the free “Photographing Pottery with a Window and a Phone” lesson rebuilt for paper: the window setup, why light from one side makes texture show, the set of six frames every pot needs, a five minute edit, and six ways a photo goes wrong and what to do about each. Built to be printed, kept beside the window and written in.

Prefer to read it online first? The “Photographing Pottery with a Window and a Phone” lesson is free, and always will be.

  • 23printable pages, US Letter
  • 8quiz questions, with a full answer key
  • 5hand-picked videos, each with a QR code
  • 8glossary terms in plain language
  • 2workbook pages you fill in yourself
For anyone whose pot looks better in the hand than on the phone

A photograph is a window and a board.

A pot you are proud of can look flat, yellow and a little sad on a phone, and it is almost never the pot’s fault. It is the light. The fix costs about as much as a sheet of poster board.

The guide gives you the order of things: a window on the shaded side, every lamp off, a board curved up the wall behind the pot, and the pot turned until the texture throws a shadow. Then the set, six frames for every pot, and a five minute edit that stops before it changes the glaze.

It also gives you what a web page cannot: a log to write in. Which pot, which window, how many frames you kept and what you would change. A few pots in, you will see what your own window does best.

Look inside

Real pages, for beside the window

These are actual pages from the guide, shown here with the sample watermark.

  • Page 3 of the “Photographing Pottery with a Window and a Phone” printable guide: before you begin, shown with the sample watermark
    Before you beginOne page before the first frame: what you will learn, what you need, what is worth knowing, the common pitfalls and what a good result looks like.
  • Page 6 of the “Photographing Pottery with a Window and a Phone” printable guide: the setup, shown with the sample watermark
    The setupThe window, the lamps and the board curved up the wall, with a tick list you can work off while you build it.
  • Page 11 of the “Photographing Pottery with a Window and a Phone” printable guide: when it goes wrong, shown with the sample watermark
    When it goes wrongFlat texture, a yellow or blue cast, blur and a busy background, each with the fix for next time and the fix for this piece. Two more are on the page after.
  • Page 16 of the “Photographing Pottery with a Window and a Phone” printable guide: every pot i photographed, and how the photo came out, shown with the sample watermark
    Every pot I photographed, and how the photo came outA log to write in: when and which window, how many frames you kept, what looked wrong and what you would change.
Flip through the free sampleTen pages, free, no email required.
Why this one belongs on paper

A window, a board and a page of steps

Photographing a pot happens with a phone in one hand and a pot in the other. Paper suits that.

  • The setup where you can see it

    The window, the board and the tick list sit on one page you can prop beside the table while you build it.

  • A reason for every rule

    Light from one side, a plain board, six frames. Each comes with its reason, so you can tell what to change when a photo looks wrong.

  • A log for your own pots

    Columns for when you shot it, which window, how many frames you kept and what you would change. A few lines of notes beat a memory of what worked.

  • It does not mind a bright windowsill

    A page stays where you put it. It does not lock its screen, and it does not need charging.

How this one is built

Rebuilt for paper, not printed from a web page

Every guide in the series is set from scratch for print. Here is what that meant for this one.

  • Read against the studio’s own rules

    We checked the lesson against The Clay Hole’s rules and our other lessons. Where it was out of step, the guide now says what those pages say, including that grinding a foot is done wet, in an N95 or better with safety glasses.

  • A photograph that matches the pot

    The guide asks for the pot you will ship, with any flaw that is left shown in a detail frame, so the box matches the photo.

  • Video notes that say what the videos say

    Each of the five video notes was rewritten from the video’s own description and chapter list, so it claims no more than they show.

  • Nothing to buy

    The method needs a window, a sheet of board and the phone you already have. The guide says so, and says where a camera helps.

  • A search line for every video

    On paper a video cannot play, so each one has its title and channel to search for, and a code that opens it.

  • Codes that keep working

    Every link is a short Clay Hole address. If a page moves, we repoint the address and your printed copy still goes to the right place.

Why the University is free

The lesson is free. It always will be.

All of the teaching in this guide comes from the free “Photographing Pottery with a Window and a Phone” lesson, and that lesson is not going anywhere.

A pot you are proud of can look flat, yellow and a little sad on a phone, and it is almost never the pot’s fault. It is the light.

If you want to try it with us, bring a board in your bag and ask the studio team where the light is good. We would love to see what you make.

Dan Pearce, founder of The Clay Hole
The series

Build a little pottery library

Every printable guide in The Clay Hole University series takes one free lesson and rebuilds it for paper, with workbook pages, a glossary and a quiz with a worked answer key. Each one keeps its number for good, so a guide you buy today is the same guide in the same place next year.

Put any five printable guides in your cart and the cheapest one is on us. Put in nine and the two cheapest are on us. It happens automatically at checkout, no code to remember.

See every printable guide

  • 5guides in your cart1 on us
  • 9guides in your cart2 on us
Sits next to

Three lessons that pick up where this one leaves off

Each one is free to read online, and the codes in the guide take you straight there.

Questions

Good to know

How is this different from the free lesson?
The teaching is the same, and the free lesson is not going anywhere. The guide is that teaching rebuilt for paper: a learning dashboard at the front, a photo log to write in, a one page summary, a glossary and a quiz with an answer key that explains every answer.
Do I need a camera?
No. A recent phone is enough if the light is right. The light is the whole thing, and a window is free.
Do I need to be a member of The Clay Hole to use it?
No. The method works at any window in any house. Where a line is only ours, the guide says so.
Does it cover editing?
Yes, a five minute edit in whatever your phone has: straighten, crop, white balance, a touch of light, and stop. It also says what never to change, which is the glaze color.
Is this too early for me?
It is marked Beginner. It assumes nothing except a pot and a phone, and the glossary fills in the words.
Do the videos play on paper?
No. Each video has its title and channel to search for and a code that opens it. The five videos come from other makers, and none of them is ours.
Do I need a fancy printer?
No. It is set for an ordinary home or office printer on regular US Letter paper, with nothing important near the edges, so normal printer margins cut nothing off.
Does it print in black and white?
Yes. The text, the tick boxes and the tables are black on white, and color is used for headings and small labels.
Can I print just part of it?
Yes, and most people do. The one page summary and the photo log are the two worth having beside the window. They are numbered pages like any other, so you can print those and leave the rest on a screen.
How does delivery work?
It is a digital download. The link arrives by email and on the order confirmation page right after checkout, so you can have it printed and beside the window the same evening.
What happens if the guide is updated?
Every edition carries its version number on the last page. When we correct or improve one, the new edition replaces the old one in the shop, and we can send the updated link to anybody who already bought it.
Can I share it?
It is licensed for your own use. Print as many copies for yourself as you like, on as many of your own devices as you like. Please do not pass the file on, upload it or use it with a class or a group without asking us first.

One window, one board, light from the side

Build the setup once, shoot six frames per pot, edit for five minutes and stop. The guide keeps every step in front of you at the window.

Get the guide · $5.00

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Licensing, safety, digital delivery, and refund terms

Your copy is yours. The guide is not.

Your purchase gives one individual purchaser a limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable license for personal use only. You may download the guide to your own devices, print copies for your own use, write all over them, spill clay water on them, replace a coffee-damaged copy, and generally use the heck out of what you bought.

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We work hard to make The Clay Hole University accurate, useful, practical, and ridiculously thorough. But pottery is a hands-on craft involving countless variables that no written guide can completely control or anticipate.

Depending on what you are doing, ceramics may involve extreme heat, kilns, electricity, gas, flame, sharp tools, spinning machinery, heavy equipment, pressurized equipment, silica-containing dust, fumes, chemicals, raw materials, stains, oxides, glazes, combustible materials, hot surfaces, breakable objects, and other hazards capable of causing serious injury, illness, property damage, fire, or worse.

These guides are provided for general educational and informational purposes. They are not a substitute for hands-on training, competent supervision, your studio’s safety procedures, applicable laws or codes, Safety Data Sheets, or the instructions and warnings supplied by the manufacturers of your clay, glaze, chemicals, tools, kilns, equipment, protective gear, or other materials.

Studios, kilns, clay bodies, glazes, firing schedules, electrical systems, ventilation systems, equipment, environmental conditions, application thicknesses, material formulations, and individual techniques vary enormously. Something that works beautifully in one situation may fail spectacularly in another. That is part of pottery. Occasionally, it is a very expensive part of pottery.

You are responsible for determining whether any technique, material, combination, firing schedule, tool, or process described in a guide is appropriate and safe for your specific circumstances before using it.

Use appropriate protective equipment. Use adequate ventilation and dust control. Read manufacturer instructions and Safety Data Sheets. Follow your studio’s rules. Obtain qualified instruction when a process or piece of equipment requires it. Test materials and techniques before committing important work to them. If you do not understand how to perform something safely, do not proceed until you do.

Never assume that a ceramic surface, glaze, clay body, firing method, finished vessel, repair, decoration, or other result is food-safe, microwave-safe, dishwasher-safe, oven-safe, structurally sound, chemically stable, or suitable for any particular purpose solely because it appears in or is discussed in one of our guides. Verify suitability independently when it matters.

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Terms version 2026-09-19b