Oxford Street Photo Booths, From H&M to Selfridges
Four analog booths on one long shopping street, and the first strip is free
Most people who search for H&M Oxford Street want the shop. Some of them want the machine upstairs. This page is for the second group, and for anyone with an afternoon in the West End and a pocket of change.
The booth the store pages leave out
Before writing this we read the pages that rank for H&M Oxford Street. They give the address, the departments, a phone number and the opening hours. Not one of them mentions that the store has a real chemical photo booth.
It does. The H&M at 174-176 Oxford St has a custom-built Photoautomat on its third floor, lit up with its own signage, and it shoots black-and-white film that develops in a bath of chemistry inside the cabinet. You sit, the flash fires for each frame, and then you wait a few minutes for a damp strip to drop into the slot. There is no screen and no digital copy. Our record lists it as free to use, which on a street where most things cost more than you expected is a small miracle.
Check the address before you go in. Oxford Street has more than one H&M, and the one with the booth is the store H&M's own locator calls Oxford Street East, a short walk east of Oxford Circus on the way to Tottenham Court Road. The H&M Oxford Street booth listing has the map pin, the store hours and a link to H&M's page for the branch.
The route, in the order we would walk it
Start at H&M because it is free and because it is the reason you are here. Finish at Selfridges because it is the most expensive strip on the list, and by then you will know whether you want a fifth.
H&M, 174-176 Oxford St
Third floor. Look for the lit sign. Black and white only. Give the strip its full few minutes in the slot rather than wandering off to try things on, because a stranger will happily take it home.
The Photographers' Gallery, 16-18 Ramillies Street
Ramillies Street runs off the south side of Oxford Street, and the gallery sits roughly 90 metres from the H&M pin. A photography gallery with a chemical booth inside it feels right. See the Photographers' Gallery listing for the latest price.
Kingly Court, Soho
Cross Oxford Circus and drop south into Soho. This is the busy one. The source behind our record visited in December 2022 and found the booth in such constant use that it was hard to tell where the queue started. Go on a weekday morning if you can. The Kingly Court listing has photos.
Selfridges cinema, 400 Oxford Street
Back up to Oxford Street and walk west to Selfridges, near Bond Street station. The booth is with the cinema on the lower ground level and makes black-and-white strips. Details on the Selfridges cinema listing.
Two Selfridges listings, probably one booth
Search our map around Selfridges and you will find two pins. One is “Selfridges Cinema” at 400 Oxford Street, lower ground level. The other is “The Cinema at Selfridges” at 40 Duke St. We think they are the same machine, logged twice under two addresses for one building, and until someone stands in front of it and confirms that, both stay on the map.
Use the first listing. It has the price and the floor.
If the day turns into an evening
Walk north from Oxford Circus to 37-38 Margaret Street in Fitzrovia, where MEATLiquor keeps an analog booth in a loud burger bar. It is a different kind of strip from the shop booths, usually with more people squeezed into the frame than the stool was ever meant to hold.
The detour we would skip
Regent Street crosses Oxford Circus, and you may have heard there is a photo booth in the Lululemon there, but our two records for it disagree with each other (one calls it a chemical booth, the other describes a custom Flash Pack Retro booth that we file as digital), and until someone sits in it and tells us which, we would spend those twenty minutes in the Kingly Court queue instead.
Getting a good strip in a shop booth
A booth in a clothes shop is lit for clothes. The Photoautomat at H&M has its own flash, so the store lighting stops mattering once you are inside. What does matter is the stool.
Wind it until your eyes sit level with the mark on the glass, or with the lens if there is no mark. Chemical booths have a fixed frame, and nobody is going to crop the picture afterwards, so a head that sits too low is a strip full of forehead and ceiling. If there are two of you, one sits and the other crouches behind. It looks silly from outside. It looks great on paper.
Black-and-white is less forgiving of a white shirt against a pale background than you might think. Dark clothes and a bit of contrast in the frame print better, which is a useful excuse if you are already standing in a shop full of dark jumpers.
Then hold the wet strip by its edges and let it dry flat before it goes anywhere near a wallet. Our guide to preserving photo booth strips covers what happens to them over the next few decades, and what to expect the first time walks through the flash and the wait in more detail.
One honest caveat
Prices on this page are the ones in our database, and shops move booths. If something has changed, the listing page for that booth is where to tell us.
Frequently asked questions
Does H&M Oxford Street have a photo booth?
The H&M at 174-176 Oxford St does. It is a custom-built Photoautomat on the third floor, lit with its own signage, and it makes black-and-white strips developed inside the machine. H&M’s store locator calls this branch H&M Oxford Street East.
Is the H&M Oxford Street photo booth free?
Our record lists it as free to use. Price is the field venues change most often, so treat that as what it was when we last checked and look at the machine before you count on it.
Which other photo booths are on Oxford Street?
The Photographers’ Gallery on Ramillies Street is a minute from the H&M door. At the west end, the cinema on the lower ground level of Selfridges at 400 Oxford Street has a black-and-white booth we list at £7 a strip. Kingly Court is a few minutes south of Oxford Circus.
Is every H&M on Oxford Street the same store?
No. There is more than one H&M on the street, and Booth Beacon only lists a booth in the one at 174-176 Oxford St, east of Oxford Circus on the way to Tottenham Court Road.
The rest of the West End
Oxford Street is the north edge of London's densest booth cluster. The city guide sorts every London booth by Tube station.