James Portman — apps, media, and paintings

Blue Mountain Sunrise — an original Georgian Bay landscape painting

GeorgianArtist.com

An online gallery of my original Canadian landscape paintings and photographs of Georgian Bay and the surrounding Ontario region — Beaver River, Blue Mountain, Manitoulin, Owen Sound — sold as originals and gallery-wrapped, ready-to-hang prints. I rebuilt the storefront from Squarespace to a custom Next.js stack that I own outright — code, images and catalogue.

Original artOwn your galleryNothing locked in
Visit georgianartist.com →
Scenic Cavespainting Inglis Falls, Owen Soundpainting Northwinds Beachpainting Bruce Trail in the Grey Highlandspainting Council Beachpainting Alpine Ski: Fallpainting Lora Baypainting Beaver River Accesspainting Manitoulin Islandpainting Bridal Veil Fallspainting The Grottopainting Blue Mountain Trailpainting Top of Blue Mountainpainting Blue Mountain Sunrisepainting Near Killarneypainting Local Farmpainting Ravenna Canolapainting Blue Mountain Sunsetpainting Delphi Pointpainting Bruce Trail at Eppingpainting Peasemarshpainting Singhamptonpainting Beaver River: Fallpainting Lone Treepainting Nottawasaga River: Fallpainting Ravenna Canolaphotograph The Grottophotograph Delphi Pointphotograph Local Farmphotograph Northwinds Beach Twilightphotograph Blue Mountain Sunrisephotograph Blue Mountain Sunsetphotograph Blue Mountain Trailphotograph Bridal Veil Fallsphotograph Snowy Owl in Craigleithphotograph Top of Blue Mountainphotograph Alpine Ski Club: Fallphotograph Beaver River: Access Point 2photograph Council Beachphotograph Lora Bayphotograph Bruce Trail in the Grey Highlandsphotograph Manitoulin Islandphotograph Near Killarneyphotograph Inglis Falls, Owen Soundphotograph Scenic Cavesphotograph Singhamptonphotograph
baylight.city — the Baylight: After Image hub, with sections for the city, the audiobook, the microdrama and the prequel

baylight.city

The hub for Baylight: After Image — hand-coded, no CMS, no framework. It carries the novella, the full audiobook, the microdrama episodes, and the free prequel, with a language switcher that serves the whole site in English, Mandarin, Spanish, French, Portuguese and Persian.

Hand-codedStaticSix languagesOpen Source
Visit baylight.city → GitHub →
Terra Incognita in daylight theme — a photograph beside a cream world map waiting for your pin

Terra Incognita

A where-in-the-world guessing game: you get a photo of a real place — or a drop into Street View — and you put a pin on the world map. Play solo, take the Weekly Expedition, or host a live room where people can join from any device with a four-letter code and guess against one clock. The interface runs in English, Spanish, Portuguese and Farsi.

FreeLive roomsStreet ViewFour languages
Play the game → Read the build note → GitHub →
No Exit host console during a staged game: three teams at 4, 3 and 1 puzzles solved, standings, and a live clock

No Exit

A self-hosted virtual escape room for remote teams. Six to sixteen people split into competing teams on a video call and race through the same 30-minute adventure while the host watches progress, drops hints, and calls the winner. Ten adventures, each ending on its own mechanic; the interface runs in English, Spanish and Portuguese.

FreeTen adventuresThree languagesOpen Source
Open No Exit → How it's built → GitHub →
Beyond Doubt: a sixteen-work auction board of Georgian Bay paintings beside the clue panel, with the day's deductions listed

Beyond Doubt

A deduction puzzle you are never asked to guess at. Every board resolves by reasoning alone: before a move is allowed, the solver checks every world still consistent with the clues in play, and a square you could only guess at is simply refused. A new board each day, a weekly edition, and an archive back to launch — themed here as an auction of Georgian Bay paintings, though the theme is a skin over one engine. English, Spanish and Portuguese, each with proper gender and number agreement.

FreeDaily boardNo guessing, everThree languages
Play the game → How it was built →
2026 World Cup Pool app — create a pool and share a join code with friends

2026 World Cup Pool

A solo-built, open-source bracket-pool app that ran through the 2026 FIFA World Cup (USA · Mexico · Canada). Players created a pool, shared a join code with friends, and the leaderboard updated as results came in. The tournament is over and the app is still up, /architecture page and all — it was built end to end in a few evenings.

FreeOpen SourceInvite by codeRan June–July 2026
Visit the app → GitHub →
Baylight: After Image cover — a near-future surveillance thriller

Baylight: After Image

A near-future surveillance thriller — “the city doesn't punish, it helps” — told across three forms: a 23-chapter novella, a full audiobook, and a microdrama series. The novels are available in English, Mandarin, Spanish, French, Portuguese and Persian. Episodes are on YouTube, with more in production.

MicrodramaNovellaAudiobook
Visit baylight.city → Watch on YouTube →
Original Recording — commuters passing through a transit gate under a sign reading Thank you for your cooperation

Original Recording

A free prequel to Baylight: After Image, as a short story and a narrated audiobook of about eight minutes. Ava Chen spends three days in a studio recording 14,000 vocal fragments — syllables, breaths, the word please forty-two times, each with a different weight — and signs away perpetual rights to her vocal identity. Years later the city speaks to eight million people in her voice. They didn't steal a voice. They stole a way of caring. Available in English, Mandarin, Spanish, French, Portuguese and Persian.

FreeShort storyAudiobookPrequel
Read or listen →