National Geographic's Found Tumblr Blog

This year, National Geographic Society is celebrating its 125th anniversary. Over its long history of exploration and education, the institution has collected thousands of images taken by their esteemed photographers. As part of its year-long celebration, National Geographic launched its Nat Geo Found, a Tumblr blog which features a collection of its visual treasures.
The Found blog is part of Nat Geo's 125th anniversary showcase, with black-and-white as well as color photographs that have never been published by the magazine. The blog is National Geographic's attempt to share more of its treasure trove of priceless photos to more audiences around the world. Most of the images on the blog have short descriptive captions, but Nat Geo welcomes viewers to share their own insights about the pictures.

More of National Geographic's amazing old photographs can be found on the Nat Geo's Found Tumblr Blog. For more entries about the National Geographic, take a look here.

The Lonely Planet Photo Mosaic Competition 2010 Winners

National Geographic isn't the only publication that boasts an active online fan base. Lonely Planet has also been encouraging its users to share their own photos on its website. A couple of years ago, it announced an online photo contest and received an impressive array of travelers' photos. Here are the winners of Lonely Planet's Photo Mosaic competition.

In celebration of its 100 millionth published guidebook, the travel guide giant Lonely Planet announced its photo mosaic competition on the web in 2010. Travelers were asked to share their own images in places encouraged in the company's guidebooks. The contest saw over 130,000 photographs submitted by its readers. These were then narrowed down to 65 of the best amateur travel photographs of that time.

The winning photograph was revealed in September 2010.

The winning photo was "Glamorous girls parading on a performance stage at Pushkar ka Mela, the world's largest camel fair in India" (the header photo above) taken by Sreesailam Pasupula in Rajasthan, India.

Tony Wheeler, Lonely Planet's co-founder,said that the winning photographer "...combined two elements of India which many Lonely Planet travellers will have experienced - dramatic Rajasthan wall murals and colorfully dressed Rajasthani women. Sreesailam's photo brings the two together, one reflecting the other and with the leader in the group striding forcefully forward, like a match to the mirror."

From Bangladesh to Ethiopia to Brazil, the variety and vibrancy of all of these images just goes to show how multicultural this lonely planet really is.

The full gallery of winners of Lonely Planet's Photo Mosaic Competition can be seen on its website. Check out National Geographic's Travel Photo Contest for something similar. For a taste of these images in hardcover form, check out Lonely Planet The Travel Book and Lonely Planet 1000 Ultimate Sights. If you want to learn how to shoot photos like these, there's the Lonely Planet's Guide to Travel Photography (How to).