Photographing Children at The Hive Soft Play, Bathgate

A few weeks back I was on assignment taking photographs at The Hive Soft Play in Bathgate, and working with children aged 3 to 11-12 years old.

The Hive Soft Play is an indoor play centre with a spectacular play frame. There is a cafe serving delicious homemade food and treats. The play centre is for children aged 0-12 years. It is also a great party venue offering a variety of party options to celebrate birthdays.

Young girl blowing out the candles on her birthday cake — Blowing out the candles on her birthday cake. Probably my favourite picture of the day.

The shoot was organised by co-owner Sarah Russell to take place late afternoon. I was to showcase as many of the activities the centre offers as possible. I took photographs of the venue, the treats on offer at the cafe, as well as relaxing mothers enjoying a cup of coffee. And of course, I had to show plenty of children enjoying themselves.

I had a great time working with Sarah, the kids and their parents and I’m showing in this blog post a few of my favourite shots taken on the day.

Young girl with her face painted to look like a tiger — Face painting is one of the activities offered by The Hive, and the children really enjoyed taking part in it. I just love the expression on her face.

The saying “Never work with children or animals” is attributed to American comedian and actor W.C. Fields. I can’t say anything about working with animals, but I would respectfully disagree with Mr Fields when it comes to working with children.

Not that photographing kids is free of challenges. They do have a limited attention span, and when a toddler loses any interest in what you are trying to do, you might as well move on, because you won’t get their attention back. So you have to be ready when the moment comes. But then, photographing young children is very rewarding. Unlike us adults, they haven’t really learned to fake it and therefore the expressions they give you are always genuine. I hope you enjoy the images in this post as much as I enjoyed creating them.

And if you have any kids, take them to The Hive in Bathgate where they’ll have an amazing time while you relax.

Two young girls on a small slide — I did not have to direct them to show they enjoyed the ride. But a few minutes later, they had completely lost any interest in this small slide and moved on to other areas of the play centre. Luckily, I was ready to capture that moment.

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2 Comments

hello, can i ask what kind of lighting you used for these shots please? Thanks

Hi Veronica,
For the first and third shots, I used a speedlight LumoPro LP160 with an umbrella, and for the second shot I used two speedlights LumoPro LP160 with umbrellas in the clamshell configuration.

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