Django - ImageField blank=True does not work - django

Question

I've seen similar problems on stackoverflow, but cannot seem to get mine to work. When I have a user upload photos if a input is left blank Django will throw a MultiValueDictKeyError. I have blank=True in my imageField, but it does not seem to work.
I have the following class article in my app:
def content_file_name(instance, filename):
return '/'.join(['content', instance.user.username, filename])
class Content(models.Model):
user = models.OneToOneField(User, unique=True)
image1 = models.ImageField(upload_to=content_file_name, null=True, blank=True)
image2 = models.ImageField(upload_to=content_file_name, null=True, blank=True)
image3 = models.ImageField(upload_to=content_file_name, null=True, blank=True)
image4 = models.ImageField(upload_to=content_file_name, null=True, blank=True)
image5 = models.ImageField(upload_to=content_file_name, null=True, blank=True)
image6 = models.ImageField(upload_to=content_file_name, null=True, blank=True)
image7 = models.ImageField(upload_to=content_file_name, null=True, blank=True)
image8 = models.ImageField(upload_to=content_file_name, null=True, blank=True)
terms = models.ImageField(upload_to=content_file_name, null=True, blank=True)
This is what my views.py looks like:
def register(request):
if request.POST:
content = Content()
content.user = request.user
content.image1 = request.FILES['image1_upload']
content.image3 = request.FILES['image3_upload']
content.image4 = request.FILES['image4_upload']
content.image5 = request.FILES['image5_upload']
content.image6 = request.FILES['image6_upload']
content.image7 = request.FILES['image7_upload']
content.image8 = request.FILES['image8_upload']
content.terms = request.POST.get('terms')
content.save()
return redirect('/portal/register')
try:
gallery = Content.objects.get(user=request.user)
return render(request, 'portal/register.html', {'gallery': gallery})
except ObjectDoesNotExist:
print 'Does Not Exist!'
return render(request, 'portal/register.html')
This is the error Django throws:
Request Method: POST
Request URL: http://127.0.0.1:8000/portal/register/
Django Version: 1.8.2
Exception Type: MultiValueDictKeyError
Exception Value: "'image1_upload'"
Exception Location: /Library/Python/2.7/site-packages/django/utils/datastructures.py in __getitem__, line 322
Python Executable: /usr/bin/python
html where the images are uplaoded:
<div class="container">
<form role="form" method="post" action="." id="js-upload-form" enctype="multipart/form-data">
{% csrf_token %}
<div class="row">
<div class="col-lg-12">
<h1 class="page-header">{{ user.username }}</h1>
</div>
<div class="col-lg-3 col-md-4 col-xs-6 thumb">
<a class="thumbnail" href="#">
<img class="img-responsive" id="image1" src="/media/{{ gallery.image1 }}" alt="">
</a>
<input type="file" name="image1_upload" id="image1_upload" multiple>
</div>
<div class="col-lg-3 col-md-4 col-xs-6 thumb">
<a class="thumbnail" href="#">
<img class="img-responsive" id="image2" src="/media/{{ gallery.image2 }}" alt="">
</a>
<input type="file" name="image2_upload" id="image2_upload" multiple>
</div>
<div class="col-lg-3 col-md-4 col-xs-6 thumb">
<a class="thumbnail" href="#">
<img class="img-responsive" id="image3" src="/media/{{ gallery.image3 }}" alt="">
</a>
<input type="file" name="image3_upload" id="image3_upload" multiple>
</div>
<div class="col-lg-3 col-md-4 col-xs-6 thumb">
<a class="thumbnail" href="#">
<img class="img-responsive" id="image4" src="/media/{{ gallery.image4 }}" alt="">
</a>
<input type="file" name="image4_upload" id="image4_upload" multiple>
</div>
<div class="col-lg-3 col-md-4 col-xs-6 thumb">
<a class="thumbnail" href="#">
<img class="img-responsive" id="image5" src="/media/{{ gallery.image5 }}" alt="">
</a>
<input type="file" name="image5_upload" id="image5_upload" multiple>
</div>
<div class="col-lg-3 col-md-4 col-xs-6 thumb">
<a class="thumbnail" href="#">
<img class="img-responsive" id="image6" src="/media/{{ gallery.image6 }}" alt="">
</a>
<input type="file" name="image6_upload" id="image6_upload" multiple>
</div>
<div class="col-lg-3 col-md-4 col-xs-6 thumb">
<a class="thumbnail" href="#">
<img class="img-responsive" id="image7" src="/media/{{ gallery.image7 }}" alt="">
</a>
<input type="file" name="image7_upload" id="image7_upload" multiple>
</div>
<div class="col-lg-3 col-md-4 col-xs-6 thumb">
<a class="thumbnail" href="#">
<img class="img-responsive" id="image8" src="/media/{{ gallery.image8 }}" alt="">
</a>
<input type="file" name="image8_upload" id="image8_upload" multiple>
</div>
</div>

Answer 1

If the form field is left blank then request.FILES['form_field'] wont exist.
You should instead use something more like:
content.image1 = request.FILES.get('image1_upload', None)
That way if the form field doesn't exist the model field will get set to None.
You can also just check if the file field exists in files, but it ends up being slightly more verbose:
if 'image1_upload' in request.FILES:
content.image1 = request.FILES.image1_upload