At any given moment, someone somewhere in the world is celebrating. Like love, the urge to celebrate is common to every culture around the globe. Regardless of the country, the occasion, the place, the time, the number of participants or the ceremony, human beings everywhere celebrate. National Geographic’s Live, Laugh, Celebrate offers a radiant and compelling collection of celebrations—large and small, formal and informal, past and present, personal and public—from around the world.
At root, all people celebrate the same thing: the continuing wonder of human life. Parents, families and friends celebrate when a baby is born. That celebration is later reprised with music, laughter and parties as the child goes through life. Along the way, achievements at school, in athletics, in the workplace, are celebrated. We celebrate falling in love, getting married, and gathering with friends and family at the holidays. All manner of events—religious events and commemorations, coronations, royal weddings, civic rituals, and athletic contests—are celebrated by some people in vast crowds in public spaces. Other people celebrate the same events at home alone in front of the television or computer.
Even death becomes cause for celebrating the life of the deceased. As Plutarch, the great biographer and author of ancient Greek once wrote, “Not by lamentations and mournful chants ought we to celebrate the funeral of a good man, but by hymns, for in ceasing to be numbered with mortals he enters upon the heritage of a diviner life.”
It is no surprise that photography, the only artistic medium capable of capturing life at the speed of light, quickly became part of almost every kind of celebration. Whether it is the child’s birthday photographed by Harry Gruyaert in an apartment in Paris, France, or the photo from National Geographic’s archives of the Maha Kumbh Mela, India’s largest religious festival, or the soapsuds party in a warehouse-sized disco in Ibiza, Spain, shot by David Alan Harvey, the pageantry, excitement, action and emotion of celebrations are an irresistible and riveting subject.
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