SquareSpace – An update

​Further to my previous post I've been working with Chris to find a solution to display file names as captions in SquareSpace. We came up with a solution and have posted it at answers.squarespace.com, but here it is in full:

Basically it's a bit of Javascript that extracts the filename from the href of the thumbnail and renders it in a div underneath. You need to insert this at the bottom of your gallery page as a code block:

<script>

function getElementsByClass(searchClass,node,tag) {
var classElements = new Array();
if ( node == null ) node = document;
if ( tag == null ) tag = '*';
var els = node.getElementsByTagName(tag);
var elsLen = els.length; var pattern = new RegExp('(^|\\s)'+searchClass+'(\\s|$)');
for (i = 0, j = 0; i < elsLen; i++) { if ( pattern.test(els[i].className) ) { classElements[j] = els[i]; j++; } } return classElements; }

theslides = getElementsByClass("image-slide-anchor content-fit");

for(i=0; i < theslides.length; i++) { theimage = theslides[i]; where = theimage.getAttribute('href').lastIndexOf("/") + 1; what = theimage.getAttribute('href').slice(where,theimage.getAttribute('href').len); theimage.innerHTML = theimage.innerHTML + ' ' + what + '';
}

</script>

The resulting gallery page should look like this:

test

comments / improvements welcome

SquareSpace. Likeable but ultimately flawed.

So, I've been hosting my new site with SquareSpace for a couple of months now and on the whole I'm impressed. The content management is simple and intuitive, the templates are sleek and well designed, SEO is built-in and, most importantly, my images look great.

However, and this is a potential deal-breaker for me, the lack of deep-editing for most users (apart from if you sign up to be a developer) makes it really REALLY difficult to fix the inherent problems with the platform.

An example - I am a commercial photographer who often sends my clients a link to a password protected gallery of edited images from a shoot. From this, the client makes their final selection and I get the images retouched. Job done. HOWEVER (and I really can't stress enough how frustrating, annoying and impossibly crazy this is) when I upload my images to SquareSpace, all of my EXIF data (Image titles, keywords, description etc etc) is IGNORED and replaced with blank fields!?!?!?! This means that NONE of my images have a title, meaning that my clients cannot refer to any of the uploaded images by name, meaning they have to resort to describing the position of the image they want within the gallery.

Mind blowing, face melting insanity. And there's no way (according to customer services) of changing this other than by submitting a feature request to their developers.

I'm currently working with a long-time friend and developer, Chris, to write some custom code that I can inject into my pages to fix this.

Update to follow.

Fujifilm X-E1

The quest to find a camera that I keep with me at all (most) times has come to an end. I bought the Fujifilm X-E1 this weekend and have ended a 5 year search (no exaggeration) for a professional-grade, portable, usable tool.

My rationale was obvious - it's the same as every other working photographer's. I wanted to have a camera with me at all times, to capture the unrepeatable events, surprises, shapes, colours and faces. I wanted to bring the love of photography back to the front of my mind, without the hassle of lugging 10 kilos of very conspicuos gear on one arm when I invariably have a 15 kilo child in the other. I wanted a camera for the moments when I'm not looking for a photo, because more often than not that's when I'll see one.

"I wanted a camera for the moments when I'm not looking for a photo, because more often than not that's when I'll see one."

I wanted image quality to not be in question. I didn't want to even think about it. I've been retouching files from EOS 5's and 1's for 10 years so it had to measure up. Not least because some of these pictures I end up taking may very well become folio or commercial pieces. 

I borrowed a Fujifilm X-Pro 1 for a weekend from Photovision here in Neuchâtel. It was great, the files were beautiful, it was a pleasure to use. I thought I'd found the one. The the X-E1 came out. Same sensor. Same lenses. Smaller body. Bingo.

Some quick snaps I took on my first day with it:

The OFS building in Neuchâtel

House at Plan, Neuchâtel

Top Floor apartment, Neuchâtel