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).