Meeting Hannah Berridge
Hannah & I met under quite different circumstances to how I would normally converse with future clients; via Instagram. Having just photographed a fantastic wedding in June where the favours given were hand painted mugs, I was wrongly under the impression they were painted by Hannah and got in touch to ask for a bit more information. Not one to take offence however, Hannah was incredibly helpful and very kind in helping point me in the right direction. I admire people like this; and always believe that when it comes to small, independent businesses much like our own we should give each other a foot up, after all, what goes around comes around.
From this came the conversation that I do product photography and it was suggested that I photograph a selection of her hand painted mugs for use online, including her website and social media accounts.
About Hannah
Hannah’s hand-painted ceramics come from her studio in Suffolk and reflect the beautiful countryside and the seaside towns that surround her. Many of the themes that she paints come directly from her surroundings – beach huts and fishing boats from Aldeburgh and wild flowers from the fields and verges in the countryside for example.
Her work is quite different from most of the ceramics you can buy elsewhere, that are not hand-painted but instead use transfers. These transfers are mass-produced and then simply applied to the ceramic pieces and fired. By contrast, Hannah’s work starts out with a pencil outline on the individual, blank piece and is then painted by hand with coloured glazes sometimes in several stages, before its final firing in the kiln. This produces bright, shiny, permanent colours that are quite different from more mass-produced pieces. Both the designs themselves and each individual ceramic piece are therefore unique. No two pieces are ever exactly the same!
The final stage is carefully wrapping each product in bubble wrap and tissue paper before placing it in a cardboard presentation box and sending it to the customer by Royal Mail. The packaging is very attractive and needs no further additions if the piece is a gift for someone. The packaging and all of the product range can be seen on Hannah’s website. If you are ordering from overseas, Hannah will always research the correct postage and let you know how much this will be when she receives your order.
Hannah has also caught the photography bug from her photographer husband and uses her design skills (she is multi skilled, and also a fantastic graphic designer!) to produce photographs of her products for the social media platforms that she uses, including a daily visual, photographic treat on Instagram and Facebook.
For more information on product photography, and previous examples of my work, see my commercial photography portfolio.
Commercial photography
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