Joyful Photos Show How Phones Capture Happiness

From children playing to friends camping, graceful dancers to gorgeous hot air balloons, the winners in the vivo VISION+ Mobile Photography Awards show the many creative ways smartphones can capture happiness.

With the theme “joy image,” the contest was open to mobile photography, asking people to reflect on human stories and landscapes around the world in 2020. Winners were chosen from 135,000 entries submitted from nine countries. The competition was held in conjunction with National Geographic.

Above is "Daily Life of Four Big Mouth Monsters" which won Picture of the Year. It focuses on four happy children playing a silly game.

Winning photographer Zhang Yu describes what's going on in the image:

Putting hand into shirt and reaching out from the collar, which posture the kids name "huge mouth monster." Look, two monsters are playing with each other, one monster is staring into space, and another is trying to get into a dog hole. This world belongs to kids, just let them have it. What I have captured is nothing more than some ordinary moments of their world.

Contest judge commented about the winning image: "A funny, sweet, playful and curious moment with good composition, catching a perfect moment, and leaving the viewer to wonder what is going on with all four boys in the picture."

Here are the rest of the contest winners and some finalists.