What is the Southern Shots Network?

Hello, My name is Donald Bates and I want to welcome you to Southern Shots. You may be asking what exactly is Southern Shots.

Southern Shots is primarily the online home for my web alter egos DBatesPhoto, BamaCowboy and RLWyld1. It is also a web based network for Photographers and Models that I have worked with over the years.

What is now Southern Shots was first created in the late 90s as a AOL Hometown web page simply called
“Shots Around Town”. It focused on the bands that I got my start photographing in the Huntsville, Alabama club scene. I later rebuilt the page and renamed it Southern Shots. By that time I was shooting much more and I needed something to better showcase my images. As the site grew I learned more about working with websites and eventually moved the site to Tripod and finally it's current location 1and1.com where it has been hosted since Halloween week 2003.

Those first sites were built using AOL's integrated software, then Hot Dog. When Southern Shots moved to Tripod I began using Frontpage Express and then Frontpage 2000. As I began using more HTML editors I realized there was only so much you could do with WYSWYG (what you see is what you get) programs. I took a few courses at Calhoun Community College that dealt with HTML in the mid to late 90s, but back then I did not even have a computer at home and the school had Macintosh computers. That made it where I was not able to really use much of what I learned. After moving to tripod I began reading online as well as anything the library had teaching myself more and more. After I built my first site for 1and1.com I really began practicing.

To practice and hone my skills I began helping a model friend with her website www.ModelSami.com. Later on I began helping out other models in the area. I then started working on a site for a photographer that is a good friend that has helped me grow as a photographer.

Originally the sites were all sub-domains of Southern Shots. As traffic began picking up and content grew I decided to split up the sites so I could experiment more and clearly see what was doing. First www.DBatesPhoto.com was created as a showcase for my photography it was and is my primary site. Along with www.ModelSami.com and a few other sites that no longer exist I converted www.Southern-Shots.com from being my personal website into the hub linking several sites together. Over the past few years since there have been dozens of sites up to 14 sites at one time linked as part of Southern Shots.

www.Southern-Shots.com in recent months has been neglected, but I decided to give it a new life as a news network for the Southern Shots web network where fans of my sites and all the other sites that are part of Southern Shots can keep updated on the latest changes to all sites. In the coming months I plan on making numerous changes so be sure to subscribe so you can keep updated on all the new features.

I hope you enjoy the changes and be sure to let me know what you think.