Ukrainian territorial defence soldiers from the Donetsk Oblast fire D-20 artillery in the direction of Toretsk, Ukraine, 24 July 2025. (Photo by Diego Herrera Carcedo/Anadolu via Getty Images)

Demonstrators run inside of subway after clashing with riot police during a protest to denounce the housing crisis and evictions, in Barcelona, Spain, on September 25, 2024. (Photo by Nacho Doce/Reuters)

Britain Horse Racing, Royal Ascot, Ascot Racecourse on June 17, 2016. Chelsea pensioners with a racegoer posing between them. (Photo by Toby Melville/Reuters/Livepic)

A woman holds a placard that reads, “I am Charlie”, during a vigil to pay tribute to the victims of a shooting by gunmen at the offices of weekly satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in Paris, at Trafalgar Square in London January 7, 2015. (Photo by Stefan Wermuth/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)

In this June 20, 2015 photo, Niberta Galvez uses the bottom half of his shirt to collect coca leaves in Samugari, Peru. Coca farmers were among the locals who, in 1984, formed citizen militias to help the military beat back Shining Path rebels, reducing them to a small group of fewer than 500 who now are deeply involved in drug trafficking. (Photo by Rodrigo Abd/AP Photo)

13-year-old Emmanuel Festo from Tanzania poses for a portrait with a plush toy that he says makes him feel safe at night and that he sleeps with, in New York's Staten Island, September 21, 2015. Albino body parts are highly valued in witchcraft and can fetch a high price. Superstition leads many to believe albino children are ghosts who bring bad luck. Some believe the limbs are more potent if the victims scream during amputation, according to a 2013 United Nations report. (Photo by Carlo Allegri/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)