Even amid the ongoing tragedy of the COVID-19 pandemic, the world is still full of joy. Students exult as they walk across the stage to graduate. Families delight in celebrating birthdays together, even if only virtually. Couples rejoice that they are finally able to marry after postponing their weddings. In these ways and others, people across the planet have found happiness amid the despair.

From South Sudan to Chile to Utah, photographers have witnessed different forms of joy throughout the pandemic: Children playing outdoors, people reuniting after long months of separation, partygoers breaking a piñata at a family gathering.   

National Geographic contributor Dina Litovsky, for instance, noticed an embrace outside a Greenpoint deli in Brooklyn, New York, that reminded her of