Photogam

Photogam - Creative Photography Portfolio Wordpress Theme

• Created: 06/10/2025
• latest Update: 06/04/2026
• By: KWST
• Demo: https://wp-photogam.kwst.net/demo/
• Email: support@kwst.net

Requirements

You need at least WordPress version 6.0+ installed for this theme to work properly. It is strongly recommended that you always use the latest stable version of Wordpress to ensure all known bugs and security issues are fixed. Other requirements:

PHP - PHP version 7+ or greater. But for maximum speed, we recommend to use PHP version 8+.
MySQL - MySQL version 5.0.15 or greater.

Getting Started

WordPress Information

Since WordPress is constantly being updated information about how to install WordPress may become out of date, so you always can read official guide here.
Below are all the useful links for WordPress information:

• WordPress Codex About WordPress and how to install on your server
• How to Install WordPress Tutorial
• First Steps With WordPress: General information that covers a wide variety of topics
• FAQ New To WordPres: FAQ’s regarding WordPress.

Phohogam Theme Installation

WordPress theme is simply a group of files, called template, bundled together that, when activated in CMS, determine the look and basic function of your site. By using professional modinatheme theme, you can have your site up and running with a new design - pretty fast. Theme installation is very easy process. Especially when you've chosen the theme you want to use, you'll need to install it into your WordPress website. You'll have the following two choices, as you did when adding new plugins:

You can add the theme directly from within the WP Admin, using Upload Theme option. From Admin Panel go the following path Appearance - Themes - Add New - Upload Theme and select the photogam.zip archive, then click Install Now. Once the theme is fully uploaded and installed, click Activate to activate the WordPress theme.


If your server is not set up properly or you have any problems, you'll have to extract and then upload the theme by hand. Using your favorite FTP client tool upload theme folder into the folder path /wp-content/themes/ on your server and active it from admin panel.

Note: On your WordPress site, the wp-content/themes folder holds all your themes. Each theme you install gets its own subfolder. All of a theme's style sheets and template files reside inside the theme's folder.
If you try to install the wrong files, you will get the missing styles.css error. This is the most common error that means you are trying to install an incorrect package.

Required Plugins

Once your theme is installed, you will notice a message at the top of your dashboard prompting you to install certain plugins. To ensure that your site has all of the same functionality that you see in the demo, it’s important that you install and activate these plugins.

You can install them automatically via the notice or manually in Appearance - Install Plugins.

After installing and activating the plugins, you need to do one more thing. Go to: Elementor - settings - acivate Post Types "portfolio".

Demo Import

Go to Appearance → Import Demo Data.
Choose your preferred version: Dark Demo or Light Demo
Click Import Demo Data and wait until it finishes.

Note: After the import completes, you may notice duplicated menus. To fix this, go to Appearance - Menus, open the Manage Locations tab, and assign Menu 1 to the primary menu location.

Theme Settings

The main theme settings are located on the path Appearance - Сustomize

Description of settings

Pages

All pages in the Photogam theme are built using the Elementor page builder and the included custom widgets. Follow these steps to create or edit a page:

1. Go to Dashboard → Pages → Add New.
2. Enter a page title (e.g., "Home", "Portfolio", "Blog").
3. Use the Metabox (see screenshot) to select a page layout:
   • Metabox 1: Choose layout – Default (with Column Image) for About, Contacts, some Portfolio pages; Fullscreen for Home and Portfolio pages.
   • Metabox 2: Set an image or video, and a title with a description for pages using the Column Image layout.
   • Metabox 3: Add a page thumbnail to appear on search pages.
4. Click Publish.
5. Click Edit with Elementor to design the page with custom widgets.

Note: Some pages, like Home or Portfolio, may require importing demo content first to match the demo layout.

Elementor Widgets

Custom Elementor widgets are divided into three categories:

• Photogam Home Widgets
• Photogam Portfolio Widgets
• Photogam Widgets

Photogam Home Widgets

These widgets use the Fullscreen page layout. To use a widget, simply drag it to the page. Inside the widget, you can add slides, videos, descriptions, and customize the style (typography, rounded corners, etc.) in the Style tab.

Photogam Widgets

Pages are divided into sections, and widgets correspond to these sections. Drag and drop the desired section widgets one by one. For single-page navigation, use the Section Nav Controls widget. You can choose either a single-page menu or a link to another page.

Photogam Portfolio Widgets

These widgets are designed to showcase portfolio items. For detailed instructions, please refer to the Portfolio section of this documentation.

Blog - News

Blog pages are managed using the standard WordPress editor. The overall blog layout and individual posts are configured using the Customizer. When creating or editing a post, you can customize media and descriptions.

1. Add a post: Go to Dashboard → Posts → Add New.
2. Set media: Use the Column Title and Media metabox to add an image, gallery, video, iframe, audio, or no media. Adding a post thumbnail is recommended.
   • Image
   • Gallery
   • Video
   • Iframe
   • Audio
   • No Media
3. Optional description: Add a description for the column image if needed.
4. Category & Tag descriptions: To add an individual description for a category or tag, go to Dashboard → Posts → Categories, hover over a category, and click Edit.
5. By default, all blog pages (categories, tags, posts) will display the description or media set for the main blog page.

Note: Using the Column Title and Media metabox allows you to create visually appealing blog posts that match the Photogam theme style.

Portfolio

Portfolio pages in the Photogam theme are built using Elementor and the included custom portfolio widgets. To create a portfolio page, follow these steps:

1. Go to Dashboard → Pages → Add New.
2. Enter a page title (e.g., “Portfolio”, “Works”).
3. Select a page layout:
   • Horizontal Portfolio – Fullscreen layout.
   • Vertical Portfolio – Fullscreen layout.
   • Column Grid – Default layout (with Column Image).
4. Click Edit with Elementor and add one of the Photogam Portfolio Widgets.

Adding Projects

You can display projects in several ways depending on your needs:

• Automatic (Latest Projects): All your projects will appear automatically. Categories and filters are generated based on project taxonomies.
• From Existing Projects: Select specific projects from your list — filters and structure are generated automatically.
• Custom Projects (Manual): Add projects directly inside the Elementor widget — filters are based on selected categories.
• Mix (CPT + Custom): A hybrid option combining automatic projects with manually added custom or external links.
• Add by Category: Display projects from one selected category.

You can also control individual project sizes (increased width or height) depending on the selected portfolio layout.

Single Projects

Single project pages can use one of the following Elementor widgets:

1. Carousel Single Project Widget – Fullscreen layout.
2. Slider Single Project Widget – Fullscreen layout.
3. Gallery Grid Single Project Widget – Default layout (with Column Image).
4. Gallery Video Single Project Widget – Default layout (with Column Image).

Each project can include media (image, video, or gallery), a detailed description, and extra info such as client name, project date, or category. To create one, go to Dashboard → Portfolio → Add New, configure the metabox options, and click Edit with Elementor. The editing process is the same as for a regular page.

You can also assign one or more categories to each project under Portfolio → Categories. This is required if you plan to use portfolio filters or automatic project loading. For manual projects added through widgets, categories can be set directly inside the widget editor.

Protected Projects

You can also password-protect any of your projects — useful if you want to show a project only to a specific client. Simply enable the Password Protected option in the project settings and set a password.

Subscribe and Contact Forms

Contact Form 7 Setup

To create or edit a contact form:
1. Go to Dashboard - Contact - Add New.
2. Add the following code in the Form tab:

  

    [text* your-name placeholder "Your Name *"]
    [email* your-email placeholder "Email Address *"]
    [textarea* your-message placeholder "Your Message"]
    [submit class:btn class:float-btn class:flat-btn class:color-bg "Send Message"]
  

Click Save.
The form is now ready. You can also customize response messages in the Messages tab.

Mailchimp for WP (Newsletter Subscription)

1. Go to Dashboard → MC4WP → Mailchimp and connect your Mailchimp account by entering your API key.
2. You can get your API key from your Mailchimp account under Profile → Extras → API Keys.
3. Once connected, go to MC4WP → Form and create a new subscription form or use the default one.
4. Copy and paste the following code into the Form code area:

Permalinks

By default, WordPress uses URLs like http://example.com/?p=123, which are not SEO-friendly. Most website owners prefer using Pretty Permalinks — clean and readable URLs that include keywords such as post names, categories, or tags. These help improve both search engine optimization and user experience.

To set up permalinks for your WordPress site, go to Dashboard → Settings → Permalinks. You will see several structure options, such as:

• Plain: ?p=123 (default, not recommended)
• Day and name: /2025/10/07/sample-post/
• Month and name: /2025/10/sample-post/
• Post name: /sample-post/ (recommended)
• Custom structure: create your own format if needed

For best results, choose the Post name option and click Save Changes.

Translation

Photogam is fully translation-ready.
You can use Loco Translate or Poedit to translate the theme into your language.

• Text Domain: photogam
• Translation File: /languages/photogam.pot

How to Translate Using Loco Translate

1. Install and activate the Loco Translate plugin.
2. Go to Loco Translate → Themes → Photogam.
3. Click “New Language” and select your desired language.
4. Translate any text by selecting it from the Source Text list and entering your translation below.
5. Click Save to generate the translation files.

You can also translate the theme’s companion plugin: photogam-theme-pack

Child Theme

To safely modify or extend theme functionality without losing your changes during updates, use the Photogam Child theme.

1. Install and activate Photogam Child (photogam-child.zip).
2. Add your custom CSS or PHP modifications inside the child theme files.
3. Parent theme updates will not affect your customizations.

This is the recommended method for making any design or code changes.

Sources & Credits

Fonts
Google Fonts

Images
Unsplash
Pexels
(Used for demo purposes only — not included in the download package)

Plugins & Scripts

• Elementor: https://elementor.com
• TGM Plugin Activation: https://github.com/TGMPA/TGM-Plugin-Activation
• Swiper: https://swiperjs.com/
• Isotope: https://isotope.metafizzy.co/
• LightGallery: https://www.lightgalleryjs.com/

All third-party assets are used under their respective licenses.

Changelog