Hopeful Images From 2025
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Year after year, rounding up his news photos of the year has proven to be an exercise in sorting through difficult and disturbing imagery. For more than a decade now, senior editor Alan Taylor has made it an annual tradition to compose a companion essay of uplifting images from the past 12 months—an effort to seek out and recognize some of the abundant joy and kindness present in the world around us.

A newborn child rests on the chest of a person playing a traditional stringed instrument.

Pascal Pochard-Casabianca / AFP / GettyBruno Menager, head of the pediatric department, plays citole for a newborn baby during a music-therapy session at the Notre-Dame de la Miséricorde hospital in Ajaccio, on the French Mediterranean island of Corsica, on May 6, 2025.

An older woman wearing a wetsuit rides a wave on a surfboard.

Esa Alexander / ReutersJoycelyn Early, a 75-year-old participant of Moms on Board, rides a wave during a weekly training session at Muizenberg Beach in Cape Town, South Africa, on October 1, 2025.

Several young people lie on the floor, hugging and petting shelter dogs.

Fernando Vergara / APNathali Barrios embraces Zeus at an animal shelter at Delia Zapata Olivella High School, where students care for abandoned animals and help them find adoptive homes, in Bogotá, Colombia, on July 17, 2025.

A couple poses for wedding photos in Central Park during a snowstorm.

Thomas Hengge / Anadolu / GettyA couple pose for their wedding photos in Central Park during heavy snowfall in New York City on January 6, 2025.

Three seals are released from three baskets on a beach, shuffling toward the water.

Hauke-Christian Dittrich / DPA / GettyThree seals shuffle into the water at the eastern end of the island of Juist during their reintroduction on August 7, 2025, in Lower Saxony, Germany. After being successfully reared at the Norddeich seal sanctuary, Hubi, Steve, and Scotty were released into the wild.

A soldier seated on a horse leans over and hugs the horse.

Viacheslav Madiievskyi / Ukrinform / Cover Images / ReutersA soldier who goes by the call sign “Kipish” hugs a horse during an equine-assisted therapy session organized for military personnel of the 13th Khartiia Brigade of the Ukrainian National Guard, Kharkiv region, on June 4, 2025.

A small crowd of people, seated, wave American flags to celebrate becoming U.S. citizens after taking the oath of allegiance.

Joseph Prezioso / AFP / GettyPeople wave American flags to celebrate becoming U.S. citizens after taking the oath of allegiance during a naturalization ceremony in the jury assembly room at the John Joseph Moakley United States Courthouse in Boston on January 8, 2025. In total, 102 immigrants from 40 countries became U.S. citizens during the ceremony.

A woman dances beneath brightly colored cherry blossoms on many tree branches.

Martin Meissner / APA woman dances beneath cherry blossoms at the start of cherry-blossom season in the old town of Bonn, Germany, on April, 6, 2025.

A para surfer is assisted by others as they push her out of the surf on a wheelchair with large rounded wheels.

Chris Hyde / GettyAnnie Goldsmith is assisted in the surf during the 2025 Australian Para Surfing Titles in Byron Bay, Australia, on March 25, 2025.

A playful dog chases a well-worn soccer ball in a grassy field.

Skip Dickstein / Albany Times Union / GettyFin the Boston terrier plays soccer with one of his favorite humans, Simon Harris, who is a jockey valet, in the backstretch barn area at the Saratoga Race Course in Saratoga Springs, New York, on July 24, 2025.

A man wearing chaps and a cowboy hat leads a line of dancing people at an outdoor music festival.

Fredrik Lerneryd / AFP / GettySheriff Knight (center), the Dancing Cowboy, leads a line dance during International Cowboy Day at Ngong Racecourse in Nairobi, Kenya, on July 26, 2025. Country music has a loyal fan base in Kenya, and the popularity of the music continues to grow. This event was celebrated by hundreds of attendees with a collective of country artists performing, headlined by Sir Elvis, Kenya’s biggest country star.

Two people embrace after trapped miners were rescued.

Jaime Saldarriaga / AFP / GettyDani Sebastian Agudelo, a rescued miner, kisses a relative near the site where a gold mine collapsed with 23 miners trapped, in Segovia, Antioquia department, Colombia, on September 24, 2025. All 23 miners, who were trapped for more than 24 hours in the collapsed shaft, were brought out alive, authorities said.

A cheerleader in the air, mid-jump

William West / AFP / GettyA cheerleader entertains the crowds during the annual Moomba Festival in Melbourne, Australia, on March 9, 2025.

People dance outside in traditional Ukrainian clothing.

Mykola Tys / APPeople in traditional Ukrainian clothes perform folk dances during celebrations of Orthodox Easter at the Museum of Folk Architecture and Life, in Lviv, Ukraine, on April 20, 2025.

Two girls scream while enjoying a carnival ride, seen slightly blurred by their motion.

Themba Hadebe / APGirls scream as they ride the Tempest at the Rand Show in Johannesburg, South Africa, on April 19, 2025.

A woman sits on the ground beside a cow embracing its muzzle.

Simone Padovani / GettyMatthias Rier’s daughter plays with a cow that has just arrived in an alpine pasture after wintering at low altitude, on May 3, 2025, in Alpe di Siusi, Castelrotto, Italy. Matthias Rier is the third in the lineage of the Rier family; together with his wife and their children, he runs a herd of alpine cows for milk production on the Seiser Alm.

People stand in shallow water, gesturing, as they enjoy a fireworks show.

Yasuyoshi Chiba / AFP / GettyLocal residents enjoy fireworks as they celebrate the New Year at Ancol Beach in Jakarta on January 1, 2025.

A golden retriever owner sits with his dog on his lap in a park, surrounded by many other people.

Tobias Skarlovnik / GettyA golden-retriever owner sits with his dog on his lap during an attempt to set a new world record for the largest-ever gathering of golden retrievers, at Plaza Berlin in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on December 8, 2025. The event attracted 2,397 dogs, reportedly breaking the unofficial world record.

A woman in a bathing suit leaps from a small platform, about to plunge into freezing water in a pool cut into a frozen river.

Andy Wong / APYu Xiaofeng leaps into a pool carved from ice on the frozen Songhua River in Harbin, in northeastern China’s Heilongjiang province, on January 7, 2025.

A woman smiles while holding a bouquet of flowers in an open market.

Atta Kenare / AFP / GettyA woman smiles while holding a bouquet of flowers outside the Tajrish Bazaar in Tehran, Iran, on March 17, 2025, as people prepared for Nowruz, the Persian New Year.

A shepherd carries a lamb on his shoulders as he walks in a field of yellow flowers.

Basit Zargar / ZUMA Press Wire / ReutersA shepherd carries a lamb on his shoulders as he walks in a mustard field in South Kashmir’s Pulwama district on April 8, 2025.

A dancer leaps and poses on a rooftop in New York City.

Charly Triballeau / AFP / GettyThe Brazilian dancer Luis Fernando Rego poses for photographs on a rooftop in the Hamilton Heights neighborhood in Manhattan on September 2, 2025. Rego grew up in the Complexo do Alemão favela in Rio de Janeiro and discovered dance at the age of 12 through the ViDançar social project. He overcame prejudice and bullying to earn a place at the Bolshoi School in Joinville, Brazil. Now, at 24, he dances with the Dance Theatre of Harlem in New York.

A man holds a small child high on his shoulders, posing beneath a tent of colored strings of Christmas lights.

Jaime Saldarriaga / AFP / GettyA man and a child pose beneath Christmas lights in Medellin, Colombia, on November 27, 2025.

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