Joy and wonder: Between the bumps of the world, exuberance shone through in 2024

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A girl plays a jump rope game at a school housing residents displaced by gang violence in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, May 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)

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A reveller lies in a pool of squashed tomatoes during the annual “Tomatina” tomato fight fiesta, in the village of Bunol near Valencia, Spain, Aug. 28, 2024. (AP Photo/Alberto Saiz)

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A Hindu girl dances during the Janmashtami festival that marks the birthday of Lord Krishna at a temple in Jammu, India, Aug. 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Channi Ananad)

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Annika and Moritz embrace as people walk by in Vienna, Austria, Sept. 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Andreea Alexandru)

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Icelandic horses play at a stud farm in Wehrheim near Frankfurt, Germany, March 21, 2024. (AP Photo/Michael Probst)

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Palestinians displaced by the Israeli bombardment of the northern Gaza Strip play next to the border with Egypt, in Rafah, along the Philadelphi corridor, southern Gaza, Jan. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Fatima Shbair)

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Chinese girls dressed in Qing Dynasty attire take pictures outside the Drum Tower at Gulou East Street in Beijing, China, July 16, 2024. (AP Photo/Vincent Thian)

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A coca vendor works at a legal coca leaf market in La Paz, Bolivia, April 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Juan Karita)

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Supporters of Ukhonto weSizwe party dance during an election meeting in Mpumalanga, near Durban, South Africa, May 25, 2024, ahead of the 2024 general elections scheduled for May 29. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)

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Neighborhood kids gather to sell Kool-Aid and chips, Sept. 17, 2024, in Springfield, Ohio. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

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An elderly woman dances while the Military Band of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army performs at the Historical Museum prior to the closing of Spasskaya Tower International Military Music Festival in Red Square, with the statue of Soviet Marshal Georgy Zhukov in the background, in Moscow, Russia, Sept. 1, 2024. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko)

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Leonila Arucan, a teacher, dressed in dried banana leaves, participates in the mud festival outside the church of Saint John the Baptist at Bibiclat, Nueva Ecija province, northern Philippines, June 24, 2024. (AP Photo/Aaron Favila)

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A family arrives to cross into Lebanon through the Jousieh border crossing, between Syria and Lebanon, Nov. 28, 2024, following a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah that went into effect. (AP Photo/Omar Sanadiki)

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Ultra-Orthodox Jews dance in celebration of the Jewish holiday of Lag BaOmer at the Orthodox neighborhood of Mea Shearim Jerusalem, May 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)

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Youth perform a street dance style known as passinho for their social media accounts, in the Rocinha favela of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, April 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Silvia Izquierdo)

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Isaac Young, 5, rests his cheek on the family horse Rusty’s forehead during farm chores before homeschooling, Nov. 12, 2024, in Sunbury, Ohio. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

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Residents bathe in a dam of the Unda River, ahead of World Water Day, in Klungkung, Bali, Indonesia, March 19, 2024. (AP Photo/Firdia Lisnawati)

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Maijuna youth Arely Riategui smiles while sitting in a hammock inside her home in Sucusari, Peru, May 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)

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Footprints create the shape of a heart in a snow-covered rugby field in Santiago, Chile, May 8, 2024. (AP Photo/Matias Basualdo)

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A woman dances as she participates in a procession to mark Falgun Mahotsav ahead of Holi, the Hindu festival of colors, in Hyderabad, India, March 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Mahesh Kumar A.)

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A fisherman casts his fishing line into the Mediterranean Sea from a rocky area along the Beirut coastline on a sweltering hot day in Beirut, Lebanon, July 27, 2024. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)

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People watch an annular solar eclipse in Puerto San Julian, Argentina, Oct. 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko)

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People play dominoes on the street during a power outage in Havana, Cuba, Oct. 21, 2024. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)

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A Murui farmer laughs while heading to harvest bananas on her farm located along the proposed route of a federal highway to be built from Iquitos to El Estrecho district, Centro Arenal, Peru, May 28, 2024. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)

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First-graders attend the traditional ceremony for the first day of school in Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine, Sept. 1, 2024. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)

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A woman swings on a swing at Venao Beach in Pedasi, Panama, July 13, 2024. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)

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A woman carries a gift basket as she arrives at a park to attend a friend’s birthday party, Nov. 24, 2024, in Kampala, Uganda. (AP Photo/David Goldman)

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Supporters of the Frente Amplio (Broad Front) celebrate the victory of candidate Yamandú Orsi in the presidential run-off election in Montevideo, Uruguay, Nov. 24, 2024. (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko)

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Palestinians displaced by the Israeli ground offensive on the Gaza Strip play at the makeshift tent camp in Rafah, Jan. 23, 2024. (AP Photo/Fatima Shbair)

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Friends and family fuss over a quinceañera in preparation for her photo session at Colon Square in the Zona Colonial neighborhood of Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, May 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)

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A view of The Rink at Rockefeller Center is pictured from several stories up inside Rockefeller Center, Nov. 2, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

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Participants hold posters celebrating equality in marriage in Bangkok, Thailand, Sept. 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Sakchai Lalit)

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Youths hang around cars blocking a street in downtown Port-au-Prince, Haiti, May 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)

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A child plays at Byzantine-era Hagia Sophia mosque during the first day of Eid al-Adha in Istanbul, Turkey, June 16, 2024. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)

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A member of the Ukrainian Jewish community shows off his dancing moves during Purim celebrations and a festive meal at the Great Choral Synagogue in Kyiv, Ukraine, March 24, 2024. (AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda)

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Beverly “Cookie” Grant reacts to the Fanflashtic experience, an operational replica of one constructed at the Woodstock Music and Art Fair, at the Museum At Bethel Woods, June 14, 2024, in Bethel, N.Y. (AP Photo/Julia Nikhinson)

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A man rides his bike over a hill as the sun rises in Frankfurt, Germany, Aug. 9, 2024. (AP Photo/Michael Probst)

By TED ANTHONY

She jumps, her eyes closed, and she grins — this little girl surrounded by gang violence in her own neighborhood in Haiti. The jump rope game she is playing brings out an exuberance in her that the conditions around her cannot squelch.

Around the planet, so many human beings — in so many circumstances — could use this kind of joy. But in a world that offered so much heartache and cataclysm in 2024, those kinds of feelings can be hard to find and recognize.

Life rushes by, leaving its marks. Moments of joy and wonder, it seems, sometimes must be extracted and pointed out before they disappear. This collection of images by AP photojournalists does exactly that.

For every disruptive news story in the world, perhaps there is an equal moment of joy or wonder. But because news is, by definition, things that are out of the ordinary, sometimes everyday moments get lost in the rush of events.

These photos, taken together, make a conscious choice to grab at that joy and wonder, and to distill it and recapture it in a concentrated burst — reminding us that even in dark days, it is still out there.

Some, like the little Haiti girl and the image of displaced Palestinian youths playing, demonstrate that even while traveling hard roads, people can find respite. Some, like the photo of a coca vendor at a legal market in Bolivia, demonstrate that smiles can burst forth at any part of the day.

Some, like the young people performing a street dance in a Rio de Janeiro favela, or slum, show that exuberance knows no boundaries and will inevitably poke through. And some show the literal joyful footprints of humanity — as with the footprints on a snow-covered rugby field in Chile that took pains to walk in the shape of a heart.

Patterns, blown kisses, celebrations of equality, ice skaters, the unself-conscious playing of children, a motorcycle riding against a dramatic sunrise, even a partier reveling in being immersed in a pool of squashed tomatoes — these images, gathered from all around the world, offer an antidote for much of the rest of 2024.

They tell us that happiness and exuberance are possible in multiple conditions, even some of the worst ones. And in doing so, they also hint that, at any moment, those good feelings might be possible for us, too.

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Ted Anthony, director of new storytelling and newsroom innovation at The Associated Press, writes frequently about photography. Follow him at http//x.com/anthonyted