Emerald Lakes Showcase website design case study
Photography Showcase, Emerald Lakes, Gold Coast
The challenge
This was a personal project rather than a client brief: a gallery site to showcase my own photography of Emerald Lakes, the area where I live on the Gold Coast. The goal was a site that gets out of the way and lets the images do the talking, without any of the usual small-business calls to action.
Our approach
I kept the build deliberately minimal: a fast-loading, image-first gallery layout with no clutter, applying the same attention to performance and mobile usability that goes into every client project, just aimed at a purely creative outcome.
The results
The result is a fast, clean photography showcase that doubles as a live example of the design and build quality clients can expect from Blue Nova Web Solutions, a portfolio piece in more ways than one. Update: a new Walkthroughs page has since been added at emerald-lakes-showcase.vercel.app/walkthroughs, giving visitors a guided tour through the gallery. The newest addition is the Studio at emerald-lakes-showcase.vercel.app/studio, which takes one boardwalk view and reworks it across a range of artistic styles, from a pencil sketch through to a finished painting.
See more local Emerald Lakes projects.
The side project in 21 seconds
Not every site Blue Nova builds starts with a client.
Emerald Lakes Showcase is a side project: a gallery of my own photos of Emerald Lakes in Carrara, where I live. 189 photos across eight galleries, from the morning light on the water to the hot air balloons and the dogs on the boardwalk.
Then it grew. The Walkthroughs page lets you scroll your way around the lake three different ways: drawn, photographed, or as one continuous lap from sunrise to the city lights. The Studio takes a single boardwalk photo and redraws it in pencil, ink, etching, coloured pencil and oil, with a short film of the sketch becoming the painting.