People watch the light installation “Onion Skin” by artist Oliver Ratsi performed during the Vilnius 700th anniversary celebration, in Vilnius, Lithuania, 25 January 2023. (Photo by Valda And Kalniņa/EPA/EFE)

Models present creations from the Emporio Armani Fall/Winter 2024/2025 collection during Fashion Week in Milan, Italy on February 22, 2024. (Photo by Alessandro Garofalo/Reuters)

A person dressed as a zombie walks during the annual Zombie Walk in Mexico City, Mexico on October 21, 2023. (Photo by Quetzalli Nicte-Ha/Reuters)

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)

A model wears a floral head dress as she promotes a chain of garden centres at the Royal Horticultural Soceity's Chelsea Flower Show in London, Britain, May 18, 2015. (Photo by Toby Melville/Reuters)

“Teenager Teenager”, an installation by the collaborative Chinese artists Sun Yuan and Peng Yu, at the exhibition “Crazy. Madness in contemporary art” in Rome on February 18, 2022. (Photo by Gloria Imbrogno/LiveMedia/Rex Features/Shutterstock)

A two-week-old hoglet finds an unusual spot to sit at the Happy Hedgehogs rescue centre in Nidderdale, North Yorkshire in the second decade of September 2023. (Photo by James Glossop/The Times)

People dance as they play with colored powder during celebrations marking Holi, the Hindu festival of colors, in Guwahati, India, Monday, March 25, 2024. (Photo by Anupam Nath/AP Photo)