Design Point

I'm still here?!

2011-03-18T08:44:00.000+11:00

Why hello faithful viewers! Yes, that's right - I am still here, I haven't died. You can stop worrying now. Why have I returned from darkness to post here you might ask? Well. I have some pretty exciting news! For those of you who don't know, I started a photography business about 3 and a half weeks ago. Earlier this week a launched a new blog within my business site. So, this blog will no longer be updated anymore. HOWEVER! If you just couldn't get enough of my incredibly thoughtful and interesting blog posts - check out some of the links below:

Web site: http://www.jacobshultz.com.au
Blog: http://www.jacobshultz.com.au/blog
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Jacob-Shultz-Design-and-Photography/122523557816186
Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jshultzphotography/

Cheers guys,
Jacob :)

Beresfield Live Weather is finished - finally!

2009-12-01T14:16:00.000+11:00

Hi guys,
I have finally finished my weather site. After months of chopping and changing between ideas, I stuck with one, and I am proud of the result!

I run a weather station at home, which then downloads data to a PC. The PC then collates the data and uploads it to the internet - the result can be seen on the live weather page.

Check it out, let me know what you think, criticise - it's all appreciated :)

jsweather.id.au

Orange Spots

2009-11-23T19:18:00.000+11:00

Hi all,

For visual art today, I was required to take inspiration from an artwork, and then translate it to a medium of my choice. I ended up taking inspiration from Jackson Pollock's 'Blue Poles' - I used Photoshop to create the artwork below, entitled 'Orange Spots', with a comparison to the original Jackson Pollock artwork:

Blue Poles

Orange Spots

Cheers.

Lightning

2009-11-21T21:09:00.000+11:00

On the 20th of November, the Hunter Region experienced a very intense storm, with areas receiving wind gusts in excess of 100km/h, and 20mm of rain in under 10 minutes.

In addition, it was also very lightning active, which provided me with the perfect opportunity to attempt my first real lightning photography.

Despite being in a very suburban area, I was quite pleased with the results:

It was an absolute ripper of an electrical storm, and thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity of experiencing God's creation.

Cheers :)

Star Trails

2009-11-16T15:14:00.001+11:00

Hi everyone,

Two days ago (Saturday), our family planned to go out to Lake St Clair for a nice afternoon/night. Unfortunately, after the one and a half hour drive there, we sadly discovered that there was barely room to to do a cartwheel it was so packed. Dejected, we drove back and decided to pop in to the Hunter Valley Gardens to have dinner. it was a great opportunity to take some photos, and I took an abundance.

A technique I was really hanging to try out was 'star trails'. Star trails are when you psoition your camera straight up, and leave the shutter open for ridiculously long amounts of time. As you all know, stars appear to move across the night sky (in actualy fact, it's us that are moving). This means that your photograph will have streaks for stars. Bit hard to explain, so I might just show you the couple of images, and then you can see what you think.

This is the best result of the night, also coinciding with the longest exposure. I think that the nicer star trails require a longer exposure, which in turn needs no (or not many) lights (which is a bit hard in a suburban neighbourhood). So next time we are out of suburbia, I will be jumping at the chance to take some more star trails. Oh and sorry about the image quality, I just had no luck getting the images to look even remotely nice... :(

Have a good week.

Sculpture by the Sea

2009-10-31T21:28:00.003+11:00

Hi guys,

Our family went down to Bondi today to do the Scuplture by the Sea walk (more info here: http://www.sculpturebythesea.com/ ).

I made the most of the opportunity to take photos, with my image folder size coming in at a grand total of 1.4GB. I am pleased with how most of them turned out, considering the harsh lighting conditions (the sun was reflecting quite harshly off the metal of the sculptures). The positive side to this is that I was able to keep my shutter speed very high (fast), which made it much easier to get crisp shots.

See my favorites below (I know, there are so many... Favourites are sooo hard to pick):

I love freezing objects that are usually to hard to follow with the human eye. Using a fast shutter speed, I was able to do this with a wave at Bondi Beach.

Post-processing in photoshop really made this photograph pop. I love the geometric structure looking of the serene nature of sand and ocean.

A shot that really captured the colourful nature of this sculpture.

I think the shallow depth of field really enhanced this photo. I love the colourful look in the sculptures eyes.

Using a fast shutter speed, I freezed the motion of these flags waving in the wind.

A macro shot of a flower.

I took this photo of a post that was part of a sculpture. In photoshop I then desaturated the unfocused parts to create a cool effect.

A fairly straight shot of a sculpture.

Sorry for the amount of photos, but there was so much to take photos of, I couldnt help myself!

Have a great day :)

A Test Post for the New Design

2009-10-30T20:43:00.003+11:00

Hi everyone, the new design has unexpectedly arrived!

This is a test post to make sure everything is working. Hope you like it, and please feel free to leave your feedback.

Have a great weekend.

The Apocalyptic Earth

2009-10-24T20:49:00.006+11:00

Hi everyone,

As said in my previous post, I have created an apocalyptic picture using a photo I took of a water feature in our backyard and an image of the Earth (original image here: http://visibleearth.nasa.gov/view_rec.php?id=2429). The image of Earth was taken using MODIS (Moderate-resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer) satellite data. The image is the most detailed image of the Earth and it's atmosphere ever taken, so I jumped at the chance of using it.

Warping the shape of my picture to match, then using a second image from the same set to add further depth and some effects (the spurt in the background of the final image), then blending all the images together using different layer styles and blending options, came this result:

Enjoy!

More photos...

2009-10-04T20:45:00.005+11:00

Hi everyone, welcome to post #2 of photos, photos and more pictures.

I'm interested - what does the water shape above look like to you (think clouds)?

(I had about 80 odd more of these water shots, but I thought I might just tease you with one or two)

And since I've have probably boggled your mind in a state awe over my pictures, I might hold back for a day or two on my awesomely apocalyptic massive manipulation for a few days to let your senses rest.

Have a great week, and enjoy!

Pictures, Pictures, and ahhh... Photos

2009-10-04T20:23:00.004+11:00

Hi everyone,
An update of some photos I have taken the last week or two (actually, so many I have to span across two posts)

In the second post there will also be a spooky apocalyptic photo manipulation I did using my own photo.

Enjoy.

Geometric Mayhem in Photoshop

2009-09-18T17:05:00.004+10:00

Hi everyone,
Finished a photoshop project today:

Grungy, geometric - I like it!

Have a great day :)

The Twelve Apostles - Third Party HDR?

2009-09-02T20:59:00.005+10:00

Hi everyone, after having a sudden craving for an awesome desktop background, I went on a Google rampage for high quality images of The Twelve Apostles in Victoria. I found abundances of images, mainly of amatuer photographers using their 0.1 megapixel handycam cameras that fit in their coin pocket. A couple though topped the lot, one that captured a beautiful sunset but waaay underexposed the rock formation, and one of a beautiful sunrise with the sun playing on the sea cliffs. As if it was meant for me, it was metered perfectly on the rocks, but the sky was largely overexposed. Smiling, I copied the images to my hard drive and spent 25 minutes making a HDR of two third party images, added a few eye candy planets, and voila! I think the results speak for themselves:

In other news, I have finished designing my site over at Beresfield Live Weather. If you want a sneak peek of the design, take a look here: http://www.jsweather.id.au/sneakpeek.jpg (note that the design on the sneak peek may not accurately represent the final look).

Thats all for now, hope you have a great day!

A Photo Photoshopped in Photoshop

2009-08-26T18:53:00.003+10:00

Hi everyone,
We went to the sand dunes slightly north of Tea Gardens the other week, and with the great views, I took about 300 photos, unfortunately about 2 thirds of them are UNDER EXPOSED! (Thats definitely a learning curve, I well never do that again!). However when my sister and I were having some roughfalls down the staggeringly humongous sand dunes, Mum took some great photos of us. It was one of these photos that I decided to do some basic photoshopping with.

Feel the hologramism (I love writers liberty)... Do not fight it.... Embrace the change (Oops, now I'm going all sci-fi with Doctor Who)

Have a great day.

HDR Images

2009-08-14T20:05:00.002+10:00

Hi all,

I have recently been reading about High Dynamic Range images (HDR). In a basic definition, they are 2 images taht are taken of the same landscape. One that makes the sky look 'nice', and the other that makes the actual landscape look 'nice'. The other night there was a pretty sunset, so grabbed the camera and a ladder and set up outside the front of our house (had a few strange glances from passer-by's :D ) and tried to take a couple of pictures suitable for a HDR composition.

Tonight I had a look at the images and chose the best two to 'stitch' together in Photoshop. After 20 seconds of computation of the two images, Photoshop made up it's mind and churned out a beautiful looking HDR image! I am quite pleased with the results, and now I know what to do better next time.

See the image below:

Have a great day! Jacob :)

Last one

2009-07-31T18:16:00.001+10:00

Here is the last image:

Click on the images for almost full size - leave your suggestions below and have a great day :)

In-post poll - New header design

2009-07-31T17:57:00.002+10:00

Hi all, this post will be a poll of sorts, asking you your favourite out of a selection of similar header designs that I will base the layout of this blog on.

Below are 5 graphics that I made today (and one more in the next post) - please comment on your favourite so I can get an idea of what to implement as my header :) (please note that the following graphics are not full size and are also compressed, meaning they are not at full quality)

There is one more image that will be put in a new post - please post all comments on the next post if possible to keep it all in one place :)

Photography

2009-07-28T10:10:00.004+10:00

Hi everyone,
One of the things that has really sparked my interest in the last couple of years is photography. I really love the artistic freedom you can have without having to be good at drawing! Below are a couple of shots that I have taken recently:

Next post I will show some pictures of our 3-day home school excursion to Canberra.

Any Ideas?

2009-07-24T20:41:00.002+10:00

Well, I have gone back to my old design after having a fair few problems with the new one. I can't seem to find a template that I really like - does anyone have any ideas? If they do, feel free to comment below ;)

I will be uploading a few actual 'content' posts soon, so don't worry :)

New design

2009-07-23T12:19:00.003+10:00

Well I have decided to redo the design of the blog, however currently the design is straight off a template. I plan to edit the design so it is more 'mine'.

The only transitioning problem I have seen so far is it seems the dates next to my posts have been lost.

Please leave your comments and suggestions below regarding the site and it's new design.

New Banner

2009-07-09T18:52:00.002+10:00

Hi everyone, just completed a new banner - what do you think? Do you like the other one better?

Leave your comments and suggestions below :)

I've Been Tagged!

2009-07-07T18:59:00.000+10:00

Hey everyone, sorry for the delay in posts.

Some of my cousins have starteed a system where you pick the 6th folder and then the 6th image out of your images folder. They have asked (tagged) me to do it, so here I go:

This photo was taken on the 5th of may 2007 at Bowral. This was part of a birthday trip for me - we went down in the bitter cold to the Don Bradman museum, and after that, we went to the nearby national park, where I took this picture of a waterfall.

Well there we go, nice and simple ;)

I have been doing a lot of photosohpping lately, but haven't got around to uploading it all, so hopefully within the next few weeks you will see a few more posts pop up. Cheers.

Beresfield Live Weather BETA is here!

2009-06-16T21:02:00.003+10:00

The long awaited Beresfield Live Weather BETA is here! For those of you who don't know, I have a passion for weather, computers, and for web/graphic design, so combining all those things together, I made a weather website. It provides up to the minute observations from my own personal AWS (Automatic Weather Station) along with other weather information including forecasts, galleries and rain radar. I now have a BETA page up and running here: http://www.jsweather.id.au/beta.php which just shows the live weather for now (please note that this does not show the final look of the site, and the links are not functional as of yet).

Enjoy, feel free to add to favourites, and please leave any feedback here :)

http://www.jsweather.id.au - Current home page
http://www.jsweather.id.au/beta.php - BETA home page

Planet Photo-manipulation

2009-06-10T12:16:00.002+10:00

Hi all,

Here is another planet/space themed photo-manipulation:

Enjoy!

New Design

2009-06-02T17:51:00.003+10:00

I have almost completed a new design - the only thing I am yet to figure out is how to embed the comments, so for now you will have to put up with commenting on a new page.

Please leave any constructive criticism, and of course praise :)

Goats and Photo-Manipulation

2009-05-28T18:08:00.004+10:00

Hi,

Well, the other day I finished a photo-manipulation. Unfortunately the only good stock photo I could find had goats on it.

I think the goats suit it - do you?

Have a great day :)

Here you go Naomi!

2009-05-25T13:16:00.003+10:00

My cousin Naomi really liked the birthday card for my sister - so I thought I would do her one with 'cousin' written all over it :)

Enjoy Naomi!

Birthday Graphics

2009-05-24T12:36:00.003+10:00

Hey,

For my sisters birthday today (you can see her blog here: http://www.em-edesigns.blogspot.com/) I made her a special 'grpahics card' (as I absolutely stink at making cards :P ).

Hope you like it (Emily certainly did!)

Beach Photo-manipulation

2009-05-23T16:49:00.004+10:00

Hi all,

Well, I'm continuing with the photo-manipulations, this time with a beach themed one. I took both photos, one of some choppy waves at Newcastle Beach, and one of some stormy cumulonimbus clouds.

Hope you enjoy it! Next post should have something a little more abstract for you arty types ;)

Fantasy themed photo-manipulation

2009-05-21T13:14:00.004+10:00

Hi,

My first showcase is of a photo-manipulation I did a while back, with a fantasy theme.

This project only took me about 5 hours to complete.

Welcome!

2009-05-19T19:05:00.002+10:00

Welcome to 'Design Point'! My name is Jacob, and I live near Newcastle, Australia. In this blog, I will showcase my work as a budding graphic / web designer, as well as muse about my favourite hobby, weather. I hope you enjoy my blog, and feel free to leave a comment.