2014 in review

The year 2014 started off to a great start with a successfully completed daily writing challenge in January. I was so inspired that I got back to my own hosting at Web1 solutions, under the domain name archanaonline.com, leaving the shackles of archonline.wordpress.com and allowing me to experiment with themes and plugins.

I followed Write Tribe, a writing group and started writing 55 word fiction. I was actually surprised at my attempts at fiction that I signed up for the A to Z writing challenge in April on the theme Fiction Fragments. Though I completed that challenge too, I was not fully convinced on my story making capabilities.

At the same time, I started onto photography, by going for my first photowalk in May. And in Flickr, one of my photos got into “Explore” for the first time. And that too, without me having to do marketing or publicizing that photo. This got me into fame. Other photographers in the Facebook groups were keen on achieving the same “photos in Explore” tag, while it happened to me by luck. In 2014, totally, three photos of mine were selected in Flickr Explore.

I also completed “photo a day” challenge on Instagram in July, thanks to the prompts by FatMumSlim. I thought of creating a collage for them to post in this blog, but failed to do so, since I could not find appropriate app to create the photo calendar collage. Then there was the Black and White photo challenge on Facebook, for which I was actually not well qualified by experience, but still tried to complete in my own way.

One of the street photos of Ganeshas from Pottery Town, which I took on World Photography Day, 19th August, was selected for exhibition at Thalam, Bangalore. Then in November, three photos were selected in the FOCUS Bangalore annual photography exhibition, Beyond Colors at Venkatappa Art Gallery, Bangalore.

Though photography wise, I started to flourish in 2014, the blog suffered on the second half of the year. I realized both blogging and photography is kinda hard to carry on together, but can create beautiful work with some effort. Posts like the Ganeshas of Pottery Town, Sampoorn Santhe writeup and travelogue on Chikmagalur, is something I look forward to repeat in the year 2015.

Hey new year! Awaiting you 2015 eagerly for the events to unfold…