Mysore Palace

Mysore, Karnataka, India
Canon EOS 50D, 10-22mm @10mm, 1/125 sec, f/7.1, ISO100

Last month, while on a business trip to India, some colleagues too me to visit the city of Mysore, about 140km from where I was staying in Bangalore.
The Mysore Palace (also known as Amba Vilas Palace) was one of the highlights of the visit to Mysore. It is situated on large grounds, with various temples and other buildings located around the grounds. Apparently Mysore Palace is one of the most famous tourist attractions in India after the Taj Mahal.

The Palace itself is an amazing building to walk through, with lots of marble, gold, stained glass, and plenty of huge murals on the walls. Unfortunately, no cameras are allowed in the Palace itself, so I was unable to capture the amazing interior, but I did take a number of photos of the exterior of the building.

The exterior of the building is covered with 97,000 light bulbs, and is illuminated on weekends, holidays and festivals. Apparently it is an amazing sight to see the building at night with all the lights on, but we headed back to Bangalore before dark.

the main gate of Mysore Palace

Mysore, Karnataka, India
Canon EOS 50D, 10-22mm @22mm, 1/200 sec, f/7.1, ISO100

a view of the Gumbaz through the entrance

Gumbaz, Srirangapatna, Karnataka, India
Canon EOS 50D, 10-22mm @16mm, 1/200 sec, f/6.3, ISO200

I recently returned home from a couple of weeks in Bangalore, India. It was my first visit to India, and I enjoyed the experience. Future blog posts will be used to write more about my impressions of India.

On the Saturday that I was in India, some colleagues took me to visit the city of Mysore to have a look at some of the local attractions. One of the places we visited near Mysore was Gumbaz, a tomb and mosque that was built by Tipu Sultan as a tribute to his father Hyder Ali.
The Gumbaz is over 220 years old, and contains the cenotaphs (empty tomb / monument) of Tipu Sultan, his parents, and various other relatives. The polished granite pillars and ceiling were very impressive, as were the ivory-inlaid doors.

The photo above shows a view of the Gumbaz from the entrance gate, and the photo below shows a row of arches in a seemingly deserted building behind the Gumbaz.

arches in an outer building

Gumbaz, Srirangapatna, Karnataka, India
Canon EOS 50D, 10-22mm @10mm, 1/25 sec, f/6.3, ISO100

Flinders Street Station after sunset

Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
Canon EOS 50D, 10-22mm @14mm (10-stop ND filter), 179 sec, f/5.6, ISO100

Last month, I spent a few days in Melbourne on a brief business trip. While in Melbourne, I met up with Alex and Ben for dinner.
I have admired Alex's photography for quite a few years, but for various reasons, haven't been able to meet him in person in either Tasmania or Melbourne prior to this visit. I have been on a few photowalks with Ben in the last few years, both in Perth and in Melbourne. It was great to be able to catch up with them over dinner.

After dinner, Ben and myself headed to the Flinders Street Station, one of Melbourne's cultural icons, completed in 1909. Apparently it was the first railway station in an Australian city.
It's a lovely building, and we spent some time taking long exposure photos of the building from across the street.

Flinders Street Station after sunset

Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
Canon EOS 50D, 10-22mm @10mm, 10 sec, f/11, ISO100

old shed

somewhere near Margaret River, Western Australia
Canon EOS 50D, 24-70mm f/2.8L @42mm, 1/60 sec, f/8, ISO200

On a recent road trip around the south-west of Western Australia with a couple of cousins from Holland, we saw this great looking old shed somewhere near Margaret River, and had to stop for some photos. I love the character of old buildings such as this, and the overcast sky provides a dark and gloomy look and feel.

old shed II

somewhere near Margaret River, Western Australia
Canon EOS 50D, 24-70mm f/2.8L @24mm, 1/125 sec, f/8, ISO200

A different kind of Dutch windmill to the last one I posted. This one was shot in central Holland somewhere, while cruising through the canals in a boat.

Dutch windmill in the fields

The Netherlands

Taken while on holidays in the Netherlands recently, I noticed this window on one of the barns on an uncle's farm, and had to take a photo of it.

farm window

Wittelte, Drenthe, The Netherlands

Last month I returned from a 3-week family holiday in the Netherlands, and came home with several thousand photos. I'm slowly working my way through the photos, and will be posting some of them on my blog in the coming months.

While I have been to the Netherlands several times before, this was the first time I have been there in summer, and we had a great time, making the most of the very long evenings (with daylight savings, it gets dark at about 10:30pm).

Here's a typical Dutch scene, a windmill, near Diever, in the province of Drenthe, in the north of the Netherlands. We were driving past, and stopped on the side of the road so I could capture this windmill. In the first couple of photos I shot, the windmill was in the shade, but then the sun broke through the clouds and lit up the windmill, resulting in the photo below.

Diever windmill

Diever, Drenthe, The Netherlands

Here's another photo from July, taken on the Worldwide Photo Walk in Perth.
This is St Mary's Cathedral, in East Perth. Major expansion and repair work was completed in December 2009, and was one of the final places we visited on the photowalk.

St Mary's Cathedral

East Perth, Western Australia
Canon EOS 50D, 10-22mm @10mm, 1/125 sec, f/6.3, ISO100

I took this photo shortly after we left the Cathedral, as we were heading back to the car.
While the photo above is portrait orientation, I have also previously published a photo taken from almost the same spot in landscape orientation, and with a tighter crop.

The old oil tanks at Albany's Whale World, which have been converted into mini movie theatres. Each of the movie theatres has a different short movie about the whaling station.

Whale World tanks

Whale World, Albany, Western Australia
Canon EOS 50D, 10-22mm @10mm, 1/4000 sec, f/4, ISO250