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Thursday, 17 January 2008 

Giving the place a polish

I'm slowly working through my jobs to do list and have got round to updating some of my galleries.

Please take a look at my updated 2007 portfolio and London Light/London Life galleries, hope you find some images their that you enjoy.


Mountain Light
(from the 2007 Portfolio)

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posted by Chris Shepherd at 22:33 2 Comments Links to this post

Monday, 7 January 2008 

One Year On

Well It seems I have now been blogging for a whole year, and what an adventure it has been. When I started I got excited if I had more than 3 visitors to my site a day, now I get disappointed if the daily visitors drop below 150 and amazingly 400 of you think that my random ramblings are worth subscribing to!

A huge thank you to all of you who read this stuff. Those of you who comment and send me emails about the blog are much appreciated too.

So what have we learned over the last year?
I try to keep this blog fresh by leaping from the technical, to the humorous, to the philosophical to the just plain ranting. Hopefully I will be able to keep up the standard for 2008.

I wish you all a very happy 2008.
Chris

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posted by Chris Shepherd at 08:00 0 Comments Links to this post

Friday, 2 November 2007 

Lemon ~ Limited Edition Management ONline (an update)

It has been pointed out to me that version of my Limited Edition Management system Lemon that could be downloaded from the download page, was not the version stated.

Well it turns out I was caught out by a case sensitive webserver, it should be sorted now so those of you who need it can download Lemon version 1.1 here.

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posted by Chris Shepherd at 08:00 0 Comments Links to this post

Monday, 10 September 2007 

Normal Service has now been resumed

Regular visitors will notice that shepherdpics.com has not been providing it's usual high levels of availability (well Ok the site has been deader than a suicidal dodo).


"Now, How do you work this thing?"
(Click to view large)

I can only blame myself as I tried to cut down the level of spam I was receiving using the .htaccess file but I messed up. I have reverted the file to a previous version and things should be OK now.

That's what happens when you meddle with things you don't understand.

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posted by Chris Shepherd at 17:05 0 Comments Links to this post

Tuesday, 4 September 2007 

We got an award!

Well September has only just started and it's a pretty fine month in my opinion. After an August where events conspired to stop me taking hardly any pictures at all, I managed to get down to Leigh-on-Sea for the dawn on Saturday morning and capture some interesting light.


Moonlight Fossett
(Click to view Large)

In addition I am chuffed to bits that this site has been awarded "website of the month" by Outdoor Photography magazine. It's actually for the October issue but magazines being what they are the issue is out now. A big welcome to all those hundreds (indeed hundreds, I checked my logs) of people who saw the article and decided to check out the site. Hope you will stick around.

The final piece of good news is that I have a gig. Yes a gig, not an exhibition. I have been invited to exhibit my pictures as part of a charity concert. More details real soon.

Yup, September is a good month.

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posted by Chris Shepherd at 08:00 2 Comments Links to this post

Tuesday, 31 July 2007 

Rob Atlas is Photographer of the Month for August

Rob Atlas is a photographer who specialises in still life images and who's work shows an absolute mastery of light. His site contains a number of very inspiring images, well worth a visit.



Lemon & Lime Chill
(by Rob Atlas)



Previous Photographers of the Month

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posted by Chris Shepherd at 18:17 0 Comments Links to this post

Sunday, 1 July 2007 

Seeing are Photographers of the Month for July

The Seeing Group are a group of 8 nature photographers from the South East of England who consistently produce the most outstanding Natural history images.



Quoting from the Seeing Group site:

This website has been set up to display wildlife and Nature images of Britain from a group of photographers who wish to put something back into the wildlife conservation efforts of our various charitable Trusts.

To achieve this, the photographs on this website are available Free of charge to registered charities and Organisations working in the spirit of Wildlife conservation and education for use in their media. All other use will be charged at commercial rates.
Great to see nature photographers respecting their subjects and giving back to the groups who look after them.

Previous Photographers of the Month

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posted by Chris Shepherd at 07:03 0 Comments Links to this post

Friday, 1 June 2007 

Kate Barclay is Photographer of the Month for June

Kate Barclay is an extremely talented photographer who's images of here native Norfolk coast and further afield are highly recommended viewing. She has a real mastery of what makes a good photograph. A visit to her website is highly recommended.

If you are visiting Norfolk and get a chance to visit one of her exhibitions you won't be disappointed.


3 in a row
(Kate Barclay)

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posted by Chris Shepherd at 08:00 0 Comments Links to this post

Thursday, 24 May 2007 

Hay you, hope you are well

Well May has been an absolutely rubbish month for me. At the beginning of the month I was hit by the flu from hell, weeks of feeling completely lethargic meant that updating my blog or playing around with Lightroom just seemed too much like hard work. I'm better now, so I will try to resume normal service and catch up with all the things I promised people I would do.

So here is a quick update on what has been happening in my world:

My confinment left me with a laptop as a companion and I spent most of the time on Ephotozine. In April Ephotozine (Epz) had a major make-over with a new codebase and look, the changeover to the new system was quite a rough ride and to help guide users round the system and deal with the problems raised I was elevated from Photo Locations Editor to the status of moderator...a bit of a poacher turned game-keeper thing I think. If you are not a regular visitor to Epz why not pop over and have a look round the refurbished pad.

Many mails have been flying back and forth between the members of the Painting With Light Society and some very exciting developments are afoot. I can't tell you much at the moment but when we have something to announce you will be sure to see it here.

Over at Chapter Thirteen a group of talented photographers have put together what is starting to become a very exciting and useful site. Why not check it out.

Finally I felt so miserable over the month that only one thing could cheer me up - a new lens! I treated myself to a 300mm f/4 L EF and the x1.4 converter. I only got to use it for the first time on the 22nd May but I am already impressed with the results. It's dead sharp and produces beautiful bokeh and it's white and very long...what more could one want?

Here is one of my first attempts with my new toy:

Smudge 14 Months On - 20D, 300mm f/4 L EF and x1.4 converter
(Click to view large)

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posted by Chris Shepherd at 11:46 0 Comments Links to this post

Friday, 4 May 2007 

Martin Jordan is photographer of the month for May

My chosen photographer for May is Martin Jordan. Martin has a great eye for photography and seems to excel at any type of photography he does be it landscapes, portraits, abstracts - whatever.



Ted
by Martin Jordan

Why not visit his website today.

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posted by Chris Shepherd at 08:10 0 Comments Links to this post

Thursday, 3 May 2007 

Portfolio Update

I have just updated my Portfolio for 2007 with the best pictures for the first quarter of the year.

I hope you enjoy them as much as I enjoyed making them, well with the exception of the image below (click the picture for the story).


Grey Day

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posted by Chris Shepherd at 08:05 2 Comments Links to this post

Wednesday, 18 April 2007 

Holding your first Photography Exhibition

I'm still spring cleaning the site and migrating the articles section of the site into this here blog malarkey. So I though I would point you all in the direction of an article I wrote three yeas ago.

Setting up an Exhibition gives a few pointers on setting up your first exhibition. Since that first exhibition I have become quite practised at putting on exhibitions. Reading it again I still feel it offers some useful advice that you rarely see on any of the photography sites on the web.


Bluebell Stripes
(A popular Exhibition Shot)

I hope it is of interest and to borrow a line from my own article:
If you are thinking of putting on an exhibition then go for it, you won’t regret it.

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posted by Chris Shepherd at 13:25 0 Comments Links to this post

Saturday, 7 April 2007 

About Time!

Regular readers will know that I have been spending quite a lot of time sorting out my workflow and the software associated with it. Now that most of the software and processes are sorted, I suppose its time to start actually using them.

So I have finally got round to uploading my Portfolio for 2006 (and a tiny bit of 2007). I hope you enjoy the images as much as I enjoyed making them.


A Bit Moore

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posted by Chris Shepherd at 21:05 0 Comments Links to this post

Tuesday, 27 March 2007 

Sprucing up the Joint

I've been a bit busy over the last few days changing the Galleries and Exhibitions Sections of the site. The site even includes the obligatory gradient background that all css based sites seem to have these days.

The main reason for this is that I wanted to change the way the galleries were generated. Previously I used Breezebrowser to generate the web galleries through The EOS template. There were two main reasons for deciding to change.

  • Breezebrowser is an excellent product and I use it at the front end of my workflow to sift through the images and quickly sort out the shots I don't want. The trouble is that generating web galleries is usually an end of workflow thing for me, and by the end of the workflow my images are all safely stacked away in iView Media Pro. So using iView would be a much better option.
  • The EOS template is a fantastic piece of javascript programming an for event/wedding photographers it does a great job of delivering galleries for users to buy prints from. The problem from my point of view is that all that javascript stops the site being indexed by search engines. Additionally i wanted something I could easily controll with css and minimal javascript and it was time for a change.
I decided to use the iView HTML generation technology combined with the Paypal Shopping Cart system to produce exactly what I wanted. In a future blog I will provide some instructions on how to do this yourself for those who are interested.

In the meantime here is a picture I found whilst tidying up the galleries:



Triplet

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posted by Chris Shepherd at 13:55 4 Comments Links to this post

Thursday, 1 March 2007 

Chris Calver is Photographer of the month for March

Chris Calver is a brilliant of landscape photographer who captures the beauty of his native East Anglia with a seasoned eye. Visit his website to give your eyes a treat.




At Rest
Chris Calver

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posted by Chris Shepherd at 18:03 0 Comments Links to this post

Tuesday, 27 February 2007 

Tonight I'm going to talk to you about Deja vue

I have noticed that the Articles section on this site has become a bit orphaned by this here blog thingy. It is also quite noticeable that the blog entries come up on web searches much more than entries in the articles section do.

So I have decided to move the articles one by one into the blog. Whilst I am doing it I will try to update the contents too.

Regular readers may experience the occasional touch of deja-vue for which I apologise. Normal service will be resumed soon.

For no particular reason at all here is a picture taken at The Naze one morning.

Naze Dawn
(Click to view large)

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posted by Chris Shepherd at 18:25 0 Comments Links to this post

Friday, 19 January 2007 

Jon Gibbs is Photographer of the month for January

Jon Gibbs is the Shepherdpics photographer of the month for January.

Jon is a master of landscape photography whose images sing with vibrancy and life, giving a real sense of place.




South Beach Study, Great Yarmouth,Norfolk
Jon Gibbs

As I have been a bit busy with my blog, we are already quite far into January, so Jon might be here for the whole of February too so that I can get back in sync.

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posted by Chris Shepherd at 08:10 2 Comments Links to this post

Monday, 15 January 2007 

How this site is made

I have had a few mails over the last couple of months asking about the site and what software I used to create it.

Generally people are after an "out of the box" solution that will generate the site for them quick and easily. I'm sorry to say that I can't help with turnkey solutions as the site is pretty much hand crafted. If you are looking for a turnkey solution the Photium or clickpik are the people you need.

To create the site, first the menu layout and design were sketched out on paper, as I tried to work out what I did and didn't want on the site.

Then it was on to the front page, this was first laid out in Photoshop, doing this allowed me to play with fonts, sizes, colour and layout very quickly and easily. The front page is designed to act as a taster for the whole site.

Once I was happy with the design of the front page, I use Imageready (part of Photoshop) to generate the page as XHTML and CSS. Then it was into Dreamweaver to tweak the CSS so that it worked in most browsers (well lets hope so anyway).


Editing the site in Dreamweaver

A new page layout was then designed in Dreamweaver, based on the home page and this was saved as a template. The other pages were then based on this template to give the final effect I was after. Templates allow me to apply global changes to the site very easily and quickly...which is a good thing.

The galleries are generated using iView Media Pro to select the files, then the pages are generated using a set of templates I created.

This Blog is provided by blogger.com which is automatically copies any changes over to my own site, yet still allows me to edit it anywhere in the world...nice. The RSS feed from this is pushed through Feedburner to provide statistics and analysis.

I would be happy to explain more to those who have questions, if that's you then please email me on chris AT shepherdpics.com.

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posted by Chris Shepherd at 11:40 0 Comments Links to this post

Friday, 5 January 2007 

I'm a Blogger

Well I've finally given in and joined the blogsphere. I've just converted all the existing shepherdpics news feed to a blog format and though there is still a bit of work to do, I thought I would release my random ramblings on the world.

Hopefully you will find my musing on digital photography and anything else that catches my eye of interest. Please feel free to comment on my blogs as I love getting feed back.

Chris

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posted by Chris Shepherd at 08:04 0 Comments Links to this post

Saturday, 16 December 2006 

Sharpening Actions

Sandra Myers has supplied some actions to help with sharpening of digital images in Photoshop. As Sandra was kind enough to make them available to people for free - we have been kind enough to host them here for her.

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posted by Chris Shepherd at 19:55 0 Comments Links to this post

Wednesday, 13 December 2006 

Dave Peck is Photographer of the month

Dave peck, is the shepherdpics featured photographer for December.

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posted by Chris Shepherd at 20:06 0 Comments Links to this post

Digital Velvia Actions

I thought it was about time I made available to everyone the actions I use to emulate the effect of Fuji Velvia. You can find them on this page.

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posted by Chris Shepherd at 19:53 0 Comments Links to this post

Saturday, 2 December 2006 

Landscape photography pre-flight checklist

Landscape photography involves getting up so very early in the morning that it's easy to forget equioment and that can create disasterous results!

To help forgetfull folk like myself I have created a checklist to help the landscape photographer arrive at a location with all the right gear.

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posted by Chris Shepherd at 20:10 0 Comments Links to this post

Friday, 24 November 2006 

Digital workflow article (Part 1)

Efficient workflow is the key to managing your digital photography. I have just added the first article detailing my digital workflow which deals with the first part of the process.....capture.

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posted by Chris Shepherd at 20:16 0 Comments Links to this post

Friday, 27 October 2006 

Lemon Release 1.1 is released

I know quite a few people have been after this so I've finally got round to releasing a version of my Limited Edition Managment software ~ Lemon. Heare are the release notes :
  • First Release used in anger :)
  • Added ability to generate single certificate
    Added Image path rename form
    Added version History
    Added new certificate Format "Shepherdpics"
  • Recreated the reports to provide useful info!
    Various minor fixes
Got to the Lemon Page for more information.

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posted by Chris Shepherd at 20:23 0 Comments Links to this post

Monday, 23 October 2006 

New Recommended Photographer of the month

The Painters with Light Society, are my featured photographers for November.

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posted by Chris Shepherd at 20:22 0 Comments Links to this post

Wednesday, 20 September 2006 

New Recommended Photographer of the month

Ian & Sue Flindt, are the featured photographers for October.

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posted by Chris Shepherd at 20:32 0 Comments Links to this post

Tuesday, 22 August 2006 

London Light/London Life updated

posted by Chris Shepherd at 20:41 0 Comments Links to this post

Recommended Photographer of the month added

John Duckett, is the first photographer to be featured in our show case of talented photographers.

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posted by Chris Shepherd at 20:41 0 Comments Links to this post

Saturday, 5 August 2006 

The Wag & Bone Show

I spent today at the Wag & Bone Show and it was a grand day indeed. Great fun meeting all those friendly doggies and their owners. I have posted a few shots from today (mainly from the Oldies Club stand).

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posted by Chris Shepherd at 20:43 0 Comments Links to this post

Saturday, 29 July 2006 

First half of Portfolio 2006/2007 now available for visitors.

I've just put the first half of Portfolio 2006/2007 on the site, I hope you enjoy the pictures.

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posted by Chris Shepherd at 20:57 0 Comments Links to this post

Sunday, 16 July 2006 

Keith & Cliff's 40th.

Two of my best chums had a join 40th Birthday and shepherdpics were there to record the fun.

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posted by Chris Shepherd at 20:58 0 Comments Links to this post

Monday, 8 May 2006 

Portfolio 2005/2006 goes on line.

I have just uploaded my portfolio for 2005/2006. I hope you enjoy the result of a year behind the lens.

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posted by Chris Shepherd at 21:01 0 Comments Links to this post

Monday, 1 May 2006 

London Light/London Life Project

London Light/London Life is a project trying to find beauty in our capital city.

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posted by Chris Shepherd at 21:00 0 Comments Links to this post

Sunday, 5 March 2006 

Beauty of Britain Virtual Exhibition Opens

For those of you who can't make it to my latest exhibition, I have created a virtual exhibition so that you can enjoy it from the comfort of your mouse.

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posted by Chris Shepherd at 21:11 0 Comments Links to this post

Friday, 3 March 2006 

Beauty of Britain Exhibition Opens

My new exhibition entitled The Beauty of Britain opens at Daiwa Securities Europe Ltd, London.

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posted by Chris Shepherd at 21:40 0 Comments Links to this post

Monday, 1 August 2005 

Liam and Juiles wedding

I don't usually do weddings but I had to make an exception for Liam and Julie. Congratulations and here are the photos.

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posted by Chris Shepherd at 21:52 0 Comments Links to this post

Tuesday, 17 May 2005 

Website update - Portfolio 2004/2005 & Epping Forest added.

Website update - Portfolio 2004/2005 & Epping Forest added.

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posted by Chris Shepherd at 21:56 0 Comments Links to this post