In a simpler time all a child or an adult needed to enjoy the outdoors was a ball and a stick. Or maybe an old tire tied to a high branch to fashion a swing. And the only instruction given to children was to “be home before dark”. Now there are iPads and computers and television screens and shrinking safe public spaces. But despite the distractions and limitations of space, these images show the charm of kicking a ball or skipping rope endures. Sometimes with modifications as a nod to changing times. Here: in this Saturday, June 20, 2015 photo, a boy runs while playing with a motorcycle wheel in Samugari, Ayacucho, Peru. (Photo by Rodrigo Abd/AP Photo)

Sailors attend a memorial and funeral service for first rank captain Andrei Paliy, Russia's Black Sea Fleet deputy commander, who was killed in the eastern Ukrainian port city of Mariupol on March 20, in Sevastopol, Crimea on March 23, 2022. (Photo by Alexey Pavlishak/Reuters)

Shortlisted: Pooyan Shadpoor, Houcheraghi. While walking along the shore of Larak, Iran – an island in the Persian Gulf – Shadpoor came across this luminous scene. The “magical lights of (the) plankton ... enchanted me so that I snapped the shot”, he writes. (Photo by Pooyan Shadpoor/2016 EPOTY)

Alvine Uva, right, wrestles the winner's sash from the hands of newly-crowned Miss BumBum 2018 Ellen Santana, left after winning the Miss Bumbum Brazil 2018 pageant in Sao Paulo, Brazil on November 5, 2016. (Photo by Splash News and Pictures)

A relative performs rituals for a man who died of coronavirus disease (COVID-19), before his cremation at a crematorium in New Delhi, India, November 19, 2020. (Photo by Danish Siddiqui/Reuters)

A couple shelter under an umbrella during a heavy downpour of rain in Belfast, Ireland on Monday, July 31, 2023. (Photo by Liam McBurney/PA Images via Getty Images)

This photograph shows the installation of French artist Cesar Baldaccini, titled “Cesar's Pouce”, at Palais-Royal Garden public park, in Paris, on October 15, 2024, as part of the Art Basel Paris 2024’s Public Program. (Photo by Thomas Samson/AFP Photo)

A model wears a creation for Schiaparelli's Haute Couture Spring-Summer 2024 collection presented in Paris, Monday, January 22, 2024. (Photo by Christophe Ena/AP Photo)