Best of 2010

I have compiled and posted 12 photos which I feel is best among the 162 photos I posted in the year 2010. Some of them are my favorites for the memories it brings back and some based on the comments received.
Would love to know what photos you would pick if you had to select top 3 from this list ?????
I also take this opportunity to thank all the followers and visitors to my blog. Hope you all enjoyed the photos and information posted here.

**** Wishing you all a very Happy new Year 2011 ****

Here are the photos in no particular order
1. Philomenas Church, Mysore (HDR Image)


2. Full Moon


3. Gumbaz, Srirangapatna (HDR Image)


4. Light House


5. Evening In Alleppy


6. Couple



7. Mysore Palace


8. Offering Prayer


9. Rain Drop


10. Ray Of Hope


11. St Francis Xavier Cathedral, Bangalore (HDR Image)


12. Lonely Bird

Santa in My Aquarium

Pair of Kribensis with Santa

Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas, I had a wonderful time with my family and friends so did my fishes, they seemed to like the company of Santa
Here are some more photos shot on Christmas Day.
Nativity Scene
Christmas Tree Ornaments

Christmas Tree Ornaments

Nativity Scene

Chilli Bajjis

My last post was very sweet ;o), so thought of posting something spicy. Above is a photo of one of the many bajji stalls in mysore exhibition during Dasara. Chillis decorating the stall will eventually be used to make  yummy bajjis.

Bajji is a famous fried snack in India, it is made by taking one or two ingredients such as Onion, Potato, Chilli, or ocasionally bread and dipping them in a batter of gram flour and then deep-frying them. 

Closer look at the chillis

36th annual nilgiris cake show 2010

 Link for "2011 Nilgiris Cake show photos"

Each year during christmas, cake exhibition is organized by Nilgiris. Exhibiton goes on for 10 days and it will have miniature edible monuments as the highlight

This years main attraction was miniature model of Taj Hotel, Mumbai.  The chairman of the cake show said the iconic hotel was chosen this year to remember those who were killed in the Mumbai attacks.  (photos from 35th annual nilgiris cake show here)

It took 15 people, working for 18,000 man hours and almost 2 months to complete this.  The monument model was built with 8 tonnes of sugar, edible gelatine and colors and it measures 22 feet in length and 14 feet in width.

Edit: Some of you asked what happens to these cakes once the show is over?  These cakes will be distributed to orphanage, they also have lucky draws and some of the small cakes will go to the winners of the lucky draw

Modern Day Monkey

Alphabe Thursday 

Nandi Hills

Nandi Hills as seen from a nearest village.  Its a panoramic image made of 3 photos, stiched in PS

Among The Green

Chandragiri Hill Temple

This huge, beautiful Jain temple is built on Chandragiri hill at Shravanabelagola and dates back to 3rd Century BC.  Chavundaraya basadi (red arrow), Chandragupta Basadi (square complex before the pillar), was built by Emperor Ashoka in the 3rd Century BC and is dedicated to Emperor Chandragupta Maurya.  The pillar is called Mahasthambha (great pillar).  Chandragiri also has memorials to numerous monks who have meditated here since the 5th century AD.

Did you notice group of people in the bottom right corner of the image, see how tiny they look, this should give you an idea of the scale of this temple.

Evening In Alleppy

Colors

In The Field

Thanks to Kala and many others for suggesting a title for this image.

Above is a photo of women working in paddy field, sight like this is common throught India.  India has the largest paddy output in the world and also the second largest exporter of rice in the world.  Paddy is cultivated at least twice a year in most parts of India and paddy cultivation plays a major role in social and cultural life of rural India. Many festivals such as Onam in Kerala, Bihu in Assam, Sankranthi in Andhra Pradesh Thai Pongal In Tamil Nadu, Makara Sankranthi in Karnataka, Nabanna in West Bengal celebrates harvest of Paddy.

Moth

The Alter

This is the alter at Our Lady of Lourdes church.  Its a small, beautiful Church located in whitefield, Bangalore.  I shot this photo few months back during the Lady of Lourdes feast and some how missed to post it and I'm glad I did not post this earlier.  When I shot this photo I never thought I'll be using it to announce my wedding.  I'll be standing in front of this very alter with my girlfriend besides me as bride, along with our family and friends, we'll be exchanging rings on a very special day of our life and its just a week ahead, its on Monday, 18th October 2010.  I'm super excited, happy and nervous at the same time :) and I'm very happy to share this with you all, please do include us in your prayers.

Great Hornbill

Can You Spot The Rain?

If you cant, just look below the black clouds. This photo was shot from the summit of Nandi Hills, Bangalore. I could not belive my eyes when i saw this spectacular view, You can see how the cloud is casting shadow on the land below them and the rain pouring from the black cloud. It was very windy on top , and it took about 15 min for these dangerous looking clouds to reach where i was standing, I had to run for shelter.  They passed as fast as they came. Hope seeing rain from this perspective is something new to many of you, just like it was for me.

St Mary's Basilica

Couple

Melkote Temple

Melkote is one of the sacred places in Karnataka. This place is also known as Thirunarayanapuram. It is built on rocky hills known as Yadavagiri or Yadugiri overlooking the Cauvery valley.  On top of the hill is an impressive Yoga Narasimha Swamy Temple which dates back to 12th Century.

Pink Rose

Arogya Madha (Lady of Good Health)

St. Mary's Feast which celebrates the birth of Mother Mary is the most important festival celebrated in St Mary's Basilica, Bangalore and is attended by thousands of people. Held in the month of September, the festivities go on for 10 days culminating in a grand chariot procession on the last day. A Novena is held for the first nine days.

I had posted information about St Mary's Basilica along with photo's taken during the last year novena season HERE.This year the Novena started on August 29th and will go on till September 7th.

Mother Mary is draped in a "saree" a typical dress of an Indian lady, and during the season of Novena, the place where the statue is kept will be decorated beautifuly with lot of flowers matching the color of the saree and its a sight to behold. This year I had planned to post photo's of Mother Mary from all the nine days of novena but I could not vist the church for first 2 days. I'll try to update photo's on this post for the next 7 days. There will be a new photo added everyday, stop by to see how beautiful and divin Mother Mary looks in a typical indian attire.

September 1st

Grooming

Lonely Tree

Jasmine

Flower

This is the first time I'm trying my hands on adding texture's, What do you think of the result? 

Endangered

Bengal Tiger seen in Mysore Zoo

Tiger is the National animal of India, and India has the highest number of wild tigers in the world but not many Tigers are left in the wild now, there are only 1411 tigers left.  Its an ENDANGERED species with a high rish of disappearing from the wild altogether.

A touchy Ad of Save Tiger Campaign (Must See)

1st Year Birthday

Its been a year since I started this blog, Just cant belive it, seems like yesterday... Here are some of the stats.

Total Number of Posts (including this one) - 110

Total Number of Photo's - 309

Total Number of Comments - 2823

RSS Subscribers - 98

Followers - 100

Fans on Facebook - 79

Google Page Rank - 3 with alexa ranking of 302K (yes, the alexa ranking is improving day by day)

12,913 page loads with 8413 unique visitor's in the year 2010 compared to 4384 page loads and 3086 unique visitor's in the year 2009

Average of 8 unique visitor's per day from organic searches, most of it coming from google images. Total of 40,500 impressions of photo's from my blog. The photo which has most number of impression in Google and other search engine is Peacock with 1900 impressions, Mother Mary in Saree comes second.

St Mary's Basilica is the most visited post, most of the visitor's land here from organic search, the following 3 photo's from the same post are in the most downloaded photo's from my blog in no particular order.

These are pretty impressive stats for me considering from where I started and the credit goes to all my visitor's, I started this blog to share the photo's, get feed back, make new friends who share the same hobby, learn from them but i was pretty new to all this and i was not sure what I was doing or how to go about all this... everything was very new to me. I still remember the days i used to keep checking my blog every few hours for any comments/reactions and there used to be none, I felt like giving up ( I guess its the phase every new blog and blogger has to go through).

After couple of weeks i discovered this wonderful meme My World Tuesday and i started participating here regularly. I used to travel to different place's during weekends just to get photo's and information for My World Post. Thanks to the Skywatch and My World team, participating here has helped me discover other part of the world and culture and also rediscover my own world, there was no turning back from here.  Today I Particiapte in several other meme's, also post at "Soaring Through The World In Pictures" "N-zine" "The Lounge" "Masth Mysore"

The journey so far has been wondeful, all the above stats is because of YOU and I take this opertunity to thank Sylvia, Carolyn Ford, Kala, Anne(Norway), Regina, J Bar, Carver, Ewoke, Bhupesh, Kcalpesh, Manang Kim, Hootin Anni, Tom(Fishing Guy), Joyce(Light and Voice), January, Ann, Noel, Eileen, Rebecca, Luna Miranda, Chandana, Tricia, Jom, Denise, Sandy, Jill, Heather, Indrani, Hilary, Tammie Lee, Lisa, Photo cache, Mary T, all my followers and every single visitor to my blog. It would not have been possible to reach here without you all, many of you have been an inspiration, many of you have been kind enough to share your knowledge and skills in photography.

Looking forward to make more friends and to celebrate many more birthdays with you all.

Please feel free to Grab this badge, this is for YOU

Lalbagh Flower Show

Click here to view photos from 2011 Republic Day Flower Show
Biannual flower shows are organized every year in January and August on the occasion of the Indian Republic Day and Independence Day celebrations respectively. The event takes palce in Lalbagh Botonical Garden, Bangalore. I'll post more photo's and information of Lalbagh in the future post now let me share few photo's from the flower show.

A theme is picked for every the flower show and the flowers are arranged accordingly. This years Independence Day flower show theme was Gateway of India, 1000's of roses were used to make this gigantic structure in the form of Gateway of India.

Rain Drop

Golden Sunrise