As you can see, my website has gotten a face lift. My previous site I actually coded by combining a few different bootstrap templates I liked and learned a bit of html and css in order to combine them and make them work together. The result of that was a few broken elements and a ton of difficulty uploading new content. Which is why, honestly, I hadn't updated my official portfolio for a while and was just uploading images on Instagram instead.

My old site had a few broken elements since I don't actually design websites. i.e., that white circle which is supposed to have an arrow in it... ;;

With the help of my brother Samurai, Jeff, I've been able to combine a few elements from templates I like to create a website that not only satisfies my picky tastes and functionality-needs, but also features the ability to create beautiful galleries with just a few clicks. (thanks Squarespace!) I'm still figuring out some features, but I'm really excited to invest in myself and witness it bear fruit. For context, I used to have to export my images to an exact size (which meant that across different platforms, the images were not as aesthetically pleasing), manually create thumbnails, and then code everything into the grid and create a profile modal for each photo set or project.

Code that made my thumbnails work with the isotope filtering.

Code for each portfolio modal that I had to add for each photoset.

via GIPHY

I loved the results (example above) apart from the fact that I had to use a grid for the thumbnails, but as you can see I was so disheartened by all of the coding that I almost never updated anything, even when I had awesome photo sets to share, like this sexy gym photo shoot I did almost a year and a half ago.

I'm glad to have made the switch to Squarespace where I can more easily upload content and where blogging is also less of a headache. I'll always love Livejournal where my blogging started years ago when I translated dramas, articles, and songs all the time, but it just wasn't practical. I may keep my Ameba, though, since it's my Japanese blog. But who knows! Maybe I'll move my Japanese blog to here too. But it's crazy, I've been blogging in that Ameba since 2006!

Who knows what will happen, but right now I'm super happy with the functionality of this new site. Here's to being more efficient! :)