SCOTLAND / DOCUMENTARY / FEATURE
David van der Hoeven at 100 Acre Wood for The Wall Street Journal, photographed for a feature on remote Scottish living, architectural ambition and designed comfort in the wild.
WSJ : Documentary
Client: The Wall Street Journal
Project: David van der Hoeven / 100 Acre Wood
Locations: Argyll and Bute, Loch Awe, Dalmally and Oban, Scotland
Scope: Documentary photography, environmental portraiture, interiors, landscape and aerial context
Use: The Wall Street Journal, print and digital editorial feature
A Wall Street Journal feature on David van der Hoeven, 100 Acre Wood and the growing pull of Scotland’s remote landscape for those leaving city life behind.
The brief was to photograph a story about escape, design and status — not as fantasy, but as a real life being built in the middle of Scotland’s wild west coast.
David van der Hoeven’s 100 Acre Wood sits near Dalmally on the banks of Loch Awe. The house is not a traditional rural retreat. It is a high-spec, architect-designed home built into a large Scottish estate, created for comfort, privacy and access to landscape without giving up the expectations of contemporary living.
The wider feature explored how people like Van der Hoeven are moving beyond the city to embrace Scotland’s remote locations, not by roughing it, but by building or buying homes that combine isolation, architectural ambition and designed comfort.
The photography needed to hold that contradiction clearly. This was not just a story about property, and not just a story about scenery. It was about what modern escape looks like when money, design, privacy and landscape meet.
The image sequence moved between portraiture, interiors, domestic detail, architectural structure, aerial views and the surrounding land. The aim was to show 100 Acre Wood as both a home and a statement: personal, remote, highly designed and inseparable from the landscape around it.
Production Notes
- Editorial assignment for The Wall Street Journal
- Documentary photography of David van der Hoeven at 100 Acre Wood
- Location coverage near Dalmally, Loch Awe, Argyll and Bute
- Environmental portraiture, interiors, architectural details and landscape context
- Aerial photography showing the scale, isolation and estate setting
- Visual focus on remote living, designed comfort, private space and Scotland’s west coast landscape
- Image sequence created for international editorial publication
Approach & Consistency
The approach was built around contrast. 100 Acre Wood needed to be shown as remote, but not primitive. Luxurious, but not glossy. Architectural, but still personal. The story sits in that tension.
The photography moved between the large and the intimate: the house within the landscape, the rooms within the house, the owner within the rooms, and the smaller details that reveal how the place is actually lived in. The west coast setting gives the feature its drama, but the interiors and portraits give it its human edge.
This was not a shoot that needed forced lifestyle imagery. The strength was in observation: the view from the windows, the scale of the land, the designed warmth of the interiors, the presence of Van der Hoeven within the home, and the sense that this kind of remote living is no longer about withdrawal alone. It is about control, taste, privacy and choosing the terms of distance.
The consistency came through restraint: spacious, composed, atmospheric and grounded in the real conditions of the house, the weather and the landscape.
Outcomes & Use
The final images gave The Wall Street Journal a complete visual narrative around David van der Hoeven and 100 Acre Wood, while also supporting the wider feature on high-value rural movement into Scotland’s remote western landscapes.
For the article, the photographs showed more than an impressive house. They showed the appeal behind it: space, privacy, wildness, architectural comfort and the possibility of living outside the city without stepping away from design or ease.
The result was an editorial sequence with range and purpose: portrait-led enough to anchor the story in Van der Hoeven, architectural enough to show the ambition of the build, and documentary enough to make the landscape feel real rather than decorative. client’s relationship with the maker.
Commissions for agencies, publications and organisations across editorial, corporate and commercial photography.
Selected clients include:
· Amazon · Apple · Google · BT Group · NHS · Comic Relief · JPMorgan Chase & Co · Lloyds Banking Group · PwC · NatWest Group · Bank of Scotland · Whyte & Mackay · Grant’s · Diageo · Pernod Ricard · OurWhisky Foundation · Sony · Twitch · Polydor Records · Rolling Stone · The Wall Street Journal · Financial Times · The New York Times · The Sunday Times Magazine · Qantas · British Airways · Boeing · Toyota · Volvo · Bentley · World Health Organisation · Getty · BP · Nike · Scottish Rugby · Runner’s World · Everllence · BAE ·
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