TicTacToe

There’s a curious satisfaction in photographing something utterly ordinary and discovering that it holds more visual weight than you’d expect. This playground tic-tac-toe frame caught my attention not because of its intended purpose — a children’s game — but because of its worn, slightly battered state. The fading X’s and O’s spoke of countless small hands spinning those yellow cubes, of games that probably never reached a conclusion before someone was called away for ice cream or a turn on the slide.

I framed it dead-centre, allowing the game board to occupy most of the image, boxed in by the green plastic casing. The symmetry gives the photograph a formal, almost clinical quality, while the surrounding playground elements — blurred but recognisable — remind you of the chaos just beyond the frame. This centrality also invites the viewer to read the arrangement of symbols as if it were a puzzle in need of solving.

Technically, I used a direct flash, a deliberate choice here. It flattens the shadows, exaggerates the colours, and adds a faintly artificial feel, which suits the subject’s plastic construction. The yellow of the cubes pops against the cool green, and the slight scuffs and grime are more visible under the harsh light, giving the piece a textured realism that softer lighting would have lost.

The image straddles two worlds: it’s both documentary and abstract. On one hand, it’s a straightforward record of a playground fixture; on the other, it’s a study in geometry, colour, and wear. I enjoy that tension — that something so mundane can hold its own as a graphic composition. In the end, tic-tac-toe here isn’t about winning or losing; it’s about seeing the everyday with fresh eyes.