Photo Of The Day: Uppsala Botanical Gardens, Sweden

Sun in the middle of Swedish winter is a sought after thing, and this photo by Flickr user mjlacey captures the seasonal beauty of sunlight on snow.

The oldest botanical garden in Sweden, Botaniska Trädgården (Botanical Gardens), located in the university town of Uppsala, was founded in 1655 and was originally used for teaching students about botany and pharmacy. Today the gardens extend over 34 acres with some 11,000 species from all over the world. Certainly worth a visit if you ever find yourself in this Swedish city.

Do you want your travel photo to be featured on Photo of the Day? Submit via our Gadling Flickr pool, or on Instagram by tagging your photo with #gadling and mentioning @gadlingtravel.

[Photo Credit: mjlacey]

Photo Of The Day: Monks, Monkeys And A Snake Charmer

This Photo of the Day, titled “Monkeys, Monks, and a Snake Charmer is Today’s Virtualvacay #srilanka,” comes from Gadling Flickr pool member and travel photographer Jen Pollack Bianco.

On Flickr as MyLifesATrip, and hosting a website of the same name, Bianco has also graced the pages of Gadling with some helpful tips on travel photography.

This photo is timely right now as Sinhala Ravaya, a Sinhalese Buddhist pressure group, staged a march this week to protest the repeated attacks against Buddhist monks in Tamil Nadu. Here, we see a different scene depicted. Bianco’s work depicts snake charming, the practice of pretending to hypnotize a snake by playing an instrument.

In addition to the Gadling pool, this photo appears in an interesting Flickr set called A Picture Per Day, which we see others mimic on Flickr, Tumblr, Instagram and other photo-sharing venues too.

It’s a way of sharing our lives with, literally, a snapshot of what is going on with us at any given point in time; what we see or do that can bring us closer to friends and family that may be far away.

Sound like a good idea? Your photos don’t have to be of some iconic destination. After all, how many of us are able to do that day in and day out?

My best friend has been doing this for a couple years now. Including photos of a beautiful sunset while stuck in traffic on the way home from work, a flower blooming in her front yard or some other image she captures going about a day.

Some share these with the world or include only family and friends.

Want to be featured? Upload your best shots to the Gadling Group Pool on Flickr. Several times a week we choose our favorite images from the pool as a Photo of the Day.

Tips for being featured: add a caption describing the image and (better yet) your personal experience when capturing it, details of the photography gear used and any tips you might have for others wanting to emulate your work.

Now, you can also submit photos through Instagram; just mention @GadlingTravel and use the hashtag #gadling when posting your images.

[Photo Credits Flickr user MyLifesATrip]

Photo Of The Day: A 121-Year-Old Dutch Beauty

Despite the Netherlands not quite being world renowned for their castles, Castle De Haar is a classic example of one, even complete with a moat. This shot by Dutch native Bert Kaufmann is exactly the kind that you would hope to capture yourself, where it’s easy to imagine strolls along the pond and enjoying a nice coffee from inside.

Take your own great travel photos and upload them to the Gadling Group Pool on Flickr and it might just be chosen to be a Photo of the Day. You can also submit photos through Instagram; just mention @GadlingTravel and use the hashtag #gadling when posting your images.

[Photo credit: Flickr user Bert Kaufmann]

Video Of The Day: Sunrise In Cloud City


Today’s Video of the Day could pass for footage from a futuristic sci-fi movie, but it was taken recently in Dubai by photographer Sebastian Opitz. Opitz’s surreal, almost comic book-like images were shot on a rare foggy morning as the sun rises. The time-lapse video was taken over four hours, at the end of which, the clouds seem to melt away, but the landscape still seems like a scene from the not-too-distant future.

Check out more of Sebastian Opitz’s gorgeous photography over on My Modern Metropolis.

Seen a video we should feature here? Leave us a link in the comments.

Photo Of The Day: Camel Safari In Jaisalmer

Today’s multi-image Photo of the Day features scenes from an overnight camel safari in the desert surrounding Jaisalmer, India. Instagram user LankaEdited used a photo collage smartphone app to share different snapshots from her adventure, then added the “Rise” filter to the finished collage for a vintage effect. Apps like PhotoGrid or InstaPicFrame make it easy to achieve this type of multi-image storytelling, which is becoming ubiquitous on platforms like Instagram.Do you have any great travel photos? You now have two options to enter your snapshots into the running for Gadling’s Photo of the Day. Upload your shots to the Gadling Flickr Pool, or mention @GadlingTravel and use hashtag #gadling in the caption or comments for your post on Instagram. Don’t forget to give us a follow too!

[Photo Credit: Instagram user LankaEdited]