Post layouts

Starting structures offered when you create a post: a case study, a photo story, and a journal entry.

The brief

Atelier Soma wanted pictures made the way the work is made: few tools, patient light, and nothing added in post that was not there on the day. The same frames had to carry a printed catalog, the shop, and the showroom wall.

What we did

We scouted the kiln room at the hour we would shoot, then built one set in the studio and moved the pieces instead of the light. A first edit went to Soma within the week, and retouching stopped at dust and the odd cable.

The result is one set seen twelve ways. Every piece sits on the same plinth in the same light, so the catalog reads like a slow walk around a single room.

Client	Atelier Soma
Year	2026
Discipline	Still life
Role	Photography
Location	Bergen, in the studio

Three ceramic vessels on a travertine plinth against a dark wall

The first three pieces out of the kiln, on the travertine plinth. One light, from the left.

Hands shaping a clay bowl on a potter's wheel — The last bowl of the collection, on the wheel.

A dried grass stem in a glass bottle casting a long shadow on a pale wall — A stem from the kiln yard, our only prop.

Mira photographed the pieces the way we see them at the wheel: slowly, and in one light.
Founder, Atelier Soma

Credits

Photography	Mira Halden
Production	Tomas Berg
Retouching	Idris Kaya
Ceramics	Atelier Soma
Printing	Northfield Press

Vesper Arkitekter gave us one day at Low House, from first light to the last. These are the frames in the order we made them.

A low concrete house set into a grassy slope — Morning, from the lower field, before the sun cleared the ridge.

We started outside because the light would stay soft for about an hour. Tomas held a reflector on the far corner. Everything else is the sky doing its job.

An oak chair in a slice of sunlight against a plaster wall

Afternoon. The sun reaches the oak chair for about forty minutes.

Inside, we waited. The architects had placed one chair where the afternoon lands, and we moved it a hand's width toward the wall so the shadow would fall on plaster instead of floor.

A concrete spiral stair seen from below — The stair to the roof, from the bottom step.

The last hour belonged to the roof. We carried one tripod up and left everything else in the van.

Basalt rocks and a misty sea at blue hour

Blue hour from the roof terrace, the last frame of the day.

We shot Fig Season for Oria Kitchen over two mornings at the end of August, when the figs were ripe enough to split if you looked at them the wrong way.

Cut on set, never ahead

A halved fig looks its best for about ten minutes. After that the cut face dulls and the seeds lose their shine, so nothing was cut until the camera was ready. Tomas kept a crate of whole fruit on a cool shelf by the door and handed them over two at a time.

Mira lit the slate with one strobe through a grid, low and from the left, with black card on the right to hold the shadows. The bread, the honey, and the knife all came from Oria's own kitchen, which is why they look used.

Halved figs, honey, and bread on dark slate — Halved figs, honey, and bread on slate. One light from the left, black card on the right.

Three things we are keeping from those two mornings:

Cut every fig on set, and only when the camera is ready.
Move the one light before reaching for a second.
Buy twice the fruit the shot list needs.

The menu goes to print in October. The figs, as far as we know, were all eaten by the crew before lunch.