A Professional Portrait Studio
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Designed to Feel Like Home
Woodland Hill is my purpose-built professional portrait studio at home in East Grinstead.
I created it to have everything I need to make beautiful portraits, while still feeling private, comfortable and relaxed. There are no shop windows, no busy high street outside and no sense that you need to walk through the door ready to perform.
Children can take their time to settle. Dogs can have a good sniff around and decide whether they approve of me, and you can simply arrive and be yourselves.
Because the easier it feels to be here, the easier it is for me to photograph the people you really are.
Park on the Drive – That’s It.
No searching for a space, no parking meters and no carrying everything you’ve brought with you halfway across East Grinstead.
You park on the drive, gather everyone and everything together, and come in.
It might seem like a small thing, but making your experience feel easy starts before you’ve even walked through the door.
Look that’s Me!
Your Stories on My Walls
The portraits you’ll see on the walls here aren’t showroom samples. They’re real Woodland Hill families and some of the stories I’ve been lucky enough to photograph over the years.
I live with them, they’re part of my home because the people I photograph, and the stories I’m trusted to tell, matter to me long after an experience is over.
One of my clients realised that portraits of her family were displayed on my wall; she was incredibly touched that I’d chosen to have them there.
I hadn’t really thought about it until then; to me, it was where they belonged and perhaps that’s the best way I can explain what I believe about portraiture.
It isn’t something that’s made, delivered and forgotten. Over time, the portraits on our walls become part of the fabric of our homes and the stories that live within them.
When Your Artwork Comes Home
I’ve always said that your artwork is like a new member of the family coming home with you.
At first, you notice it every time you walk into the room. Then, little by little, it becomes part of home. Part of the furniture of your everyday life and most importantly part of your family’s story.
Until one day, you can’t imagine your wall without it.
Where You’ll See Your Portraits for the First Time
This is also where you’ll come back for your Design Consultation and see your finished portraits for the first time.
Rather than receiving an online gallery of thumbnails to look through at home, your portraits are revealed on the big screen. You get to simply sit back and enjoy seeing what we created together before you need to think about choosing anything.
Then we’ll look through your portraits together, and you can see and hold the artwork I have here while we work out what feels right for you and your home.
It’s one of my favourite parts of the whole experience; watching you see what I saw when I photographed you.
I Believe
I believe the place where your portraits are created matters.
You should feel comfortable enough to settle, welcome enough to be yourselves and have the time to forget, just for a while, that there’s a camera in the room; because the portraits we create here will eventually leave Woodland Hill and become part of your home.
As they are displayed proudly on your walls, they’ll always remind the people within them that they are wanted, they are loved and, most importantly, they belong.
A Studio Built Around the Experience
Over the years, Woodland Hill has evolved around the way I work and the experience I want you to have when you’re here.
Everything has its purpose; from having the space and time for children and dogs to settle, to the big screen where you’ll see your portraits for the first time, and the artwork around you that shows what those portraits can eventually become.
It’s not simply where I photograph you. It’s part of the experience itself.
Professional Portrait Studio in East Grinstead, West Sussex
Woodland Hill Photography is a purpose-built professional portrait studio at my home in East Grinstead, West Sussex, welcoming families from across Sussex, Surrey and Kent. The studio is used for First Birthday Cake Smash & Splash, First Birthday Portrait, Maternity, Mother & Daughter, Pawtrait and selected portrait experiences, with private parking available on the drive. Clients return to Woodland Hill for their Design Consultation, where finished portraits are revealed on the studio’s large screen and examples of mounted portraits, Treasure Boxes and wall art can be seen and held before choosing artwork for their home.