As electronic gadgets like smartphones and tablet computers make their way more and more into the waiting hands of children worldwide and as the engagement of the younger generation on social media is more popular today than ever before, the traditional pastimes of children are changing rapidly.

Along with these technological advances comes a decline in other types of common activities that were once seen as a way of life. The kids who would play non-stop at local parks until the street lights were turned on in the evening have mostly vanished from the emerging modern landscape and today’s children and youth are unfortunately becoming less and less interested in the games that used to provide children with hours of enjoyment. These fading playgrounds are now becoming a universal icon for something that seems to be slowly becoming a symbol of the past.

Photographer Brenda Biondo has spent the last 10 years documenting that disappearing world with the photos that fill her new book “Once Upon A Playground” and captures for us all the last remaining remnants of childhood, before they are once and for all committed to a distant memory of days gone by…

1. Popular playground slides that were once overflowing with children are becoming abandoned structures from the past.

photos by Brenda Biondo

2. These photos of parks without children create a longing for the old-fashioned simple pleasures of the good life, now seemingly a symbol of days gone by.

photos by Brenda Biondo

3. Although many of the these playgrounds have been around for generations, the photographer remarked that “probably half the equipment has been taken down since I took photographs of it”.

photos by Brenda Biondo

4. These colorful horses seem to be remnants from another era as they wait silently for the children to return.

photos by Brenda Biondo

5. This merry-go-round with its fading paint is a metaphorical example of the current modern day playground.

photos by Brenda Biondo

6. The photographer admits remorsefully that “The structures that defined [playgrounds] — towering metal slides, spine-jarring seesaws, expansive climbing gyms — are now being hauled off to the scrap yard as schools and towns renovate their playgrounds.” Time marches on…

photos by Brenda Biondo

7. The child’s playground – a victim of the modern age.

photos by Brenda Biondo

8. This old car that has probably bounced generations of children, now seems frozen as it witnesses the passing seasons of time.

photos by Brenda Biondo

9. What was probably once a high point of every young child’s trip to this park now stands vacant and empty under the darkening night sky.

photos by Brenda Biondo

10. A nostalgic glimpse into the life of days gone by…

photos by Brenda Biondo

11. A dented slippery slide now reflects only the ominous color of gray from the gathering storm clouds above.

photos by Brenda Biondo

12. “Snapped from emotive perspectives, and dripping in bold hues, the portraits transform equipment into anthropomorphized characters, and send us back in time to the days when a rusted basketball hoop sent us into a fit of elation.”

“It is the evening of the day, I sit and watch the children play, doing things I used to do, they think are new, I sit and watch as tears go by…”

photos by Brenda Biondo