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DEV3 Framelight – Free Photography Portfolio WordPress Theme for Elementor & WooCommerce

A free, dark-first WordPress theme for photographers: masonry, justified and grid galleries with a fullscreen lightbox, password-protected client proofing, packages with session booking and a prints shop. Photo heroes and light motion, no 3D.

by DEV3 TechnologiesVerified Author(0) 0 downloads 0 viewsUpdated 06 Nov 2026

DEV3 Framelight is a free WordPress theme for wedding, portrait, landscape and commercial photographers. It is dark-first, like a gallery wall: Newsreader headlines with italic amber accents, mono captions, hairline frames, crop marks and a film-strip band. Every page opens with a full-bleed photograph and motion stays light (a slow drift, reveals, gentle hovers) and respects reduced motion. There is no 3D or WebGL in the theme at all.

Sign in to download it for free. There is no public live demo: watch the video tour at the top of this page, or step through the screenshots at desktop, tablet and phone sizes.

Galleries that load fast and open full screen

  • Three layouts per gallery: masonry, justified rows and an even grid, all pure CSS, with visitors able to switch layout and the choice remembered.
  • A fullscreen lightbox with keyboard and swipe control, a caption and an EXIF line for every photo (for example 24 mm · f/2.0 · 13 s · ISO 3200).
  • Native lazy loading with responsive srcset images; the lightbox script only loads on gallery pages.
  • An image protection switch in the Customizer that blocks right-click and dragging on gallery photos (it deters casual saving only).

Client proofing

  • Mark a gallery as a client proofing gallery and give it a password: the theme uses WordPress's own post password, hides it from the public portfolio and marks it noindex.
  • Clients tap a heart on their favourites, see the count against the photos their package includes, and send the list to you by email or copy it. Favourites stay in their browser until sent.

Packages and booking

  • A Packages type with price, session length, what is included, add-ons, delivery, deposit and FAQs, plus a sticky booking card on every package.
  • A pricing page with a comparison table and a Book a session page. Requests are stored privately and emailed to you.

A prints shop

WooCommerce styling that sets every print on a museum mat: variable products with a size selector, downloadable guides, a slide-out mini cart and quick view.

Built for editing

Every demo page is built in Elementor (free) with the DEV3 Theme Toolkit widgets, and 26 block patterns cover the same sections for the block editor. Colours and fonts come from one token file and sync to the Customizer, theme.json and the Elementor kit. Fonts are self-hosted. The demo photos are free-licence (CC0) stock photos listed in PHOTO-CREDITS.md; all names, clients and prices are fictional.

#photography#portfolio#photographer#wedding#gallery#lightbox#client-proofing#elementor#woocommerce#wordpress-theme#dark-theme#free

How it's built

Architecture, stack, key decisions and the quality gates DEV3 Framelight passed before release.

Our own free WordPress theme for photographers: three gallery layouts, a fullscreen lightbox with EXIF captions, password-protected client proofing, packages with booking and a prints shop, with no 3D.

The problem it solves

A photographer's website has to get out of the way of the pictures, load quickly with hundreds of images, let clients choose their favourites privately and still sell sessions and prints. Most portfolio themes lean on sliders and heavy scripts, treat proofing as a paid plugin and look like every other dark template. Framelight needed galleries that stay fast, a proofing flow that works without accounts, clear packages with booking and a shop that makes prints look like prints, all editable in Elementor and with no 3D or WebGL.

Architecture and approach

Framelight is a classic PHP theme with theme.json, built on DEV3's shared theme core in flat mode: a WebGL-free boot and a build gate that fails the theme if any three.js or WebGL code reaches its assets. The always-loaded JavaScript is about 15 KB gzipped.

Galleries are a toolkit post type with an ordered list of media IDs. Masonry, justified rows and the even grid are pure CSS using each photo's own aspect ratio, so there is no layout script and no layout shift. A small lazy module adds the lightbox (focus trap, keyboard, swipe, fullscreen, captions with an EXIF line), the layout switcher and image protection.

Client proofing uses WordPress's native post password: a password field copies into the real post password and clears itself, and proofing galleries are hidden from the portfolio and marked noindex. Favourites live in the visitor's browser and can be emailed or copied.

Packages, booking and the prints shop reuse the toolkit's pricing, request-form and WooCommerce features.

Quality gates and results

Framelight ships as a free download with a one-click demo: 9 Elementor pages, 9 galleries (2 password-protected), 6 packages, 2 photographers, 10 shop products, 6 articles and 26 block patterns.

It passes PHP lint, WordPress coding standards (0 errors, 0 warnings), Theme Check with no required issues, the WooCommerce checkout flow and an Elementor editor test, and its no-3D gate.

Tech stack

Area Technologies
Frontend DEV3 Motion, Photo Hero, CSS galleries, Lightbox, Elementor widgets, Block patterns
Platform WordPress 6.0+, PHP 7.4+, WooCommerce, Contact Form 7, DEV3 Theme Toolkit
Delivery phpcs (WPCS 3), Theme Check, No-3D build gate, One-click demo importer

Inside the build

Photo hero slideshow: a full-screen cross-fading slideshow of four photographs with a slow drift, an italic amber headline, two buttons and mono caption chips. Photo hero slideshow — a full-screen cross-fading slideshow of four photographs with a slow drift, an italic amber headline, two buttons and mono caption chips.

Selected galleries: a masonry of gallery covers with mixed proportions, each tagged with its location and year, opening into a full gallery. Selected galleries — a masonry of gallery covers with mixed proportions, each tagged with its location and year, opening into a full gallery.

Guides & articles

Practical guides and engineering write-ups for DEV3 Framelight.

A free photography portfolio WordPress theme with client proofing: Framelight

Last updated
A free photography portfolio WordPress theme with client proofing: Framelight: DEV3 Framelight

A photographer's website has to get out of the way of the pictures, load quickly with hundreds of images, let clients choose their favourites privately and still sell sessions and prints. DEV3 Framelight is a free WordPress theme built for exactly that: a dark, gallery-wall look, real photographs in every section and every page editable in Elementor.

The Framelight home page: a full-screen photo slideshow of the northern lights over a lake with the headline

Video tour of the Framelight demo: the photo hero, galleries and lightbox, client proofing, packages and booking, and the prints shop

Who Framelight is for

  • Wedding and portrait photographers who want clear packages, booking and a private place for clients to choose photos.
  • Landscape and fine-art photographers who sell prints and want galleries that show the work at its best.
  • Small studios and commercial photographers who need a portfolio that loads fast and stays easy to update.

Galleries in three layouts

Each gallery stores its photos as an ordered list and its own layout: masonry, justified rows or an even grid. All three are pure CSS built from each photo's own proportions, so pages do not jump as images load, and visitors can switch layout from a small toolbar. Every photo opens in a fullscreen lightbox with keyboard and swipe control and a caption with an EXIF line.

A Framelight gallery page: the cover photograph as a hero with location, year, kit and frame count, then a layout switcher over a gallery of aurora photographs

The gallery layouts: masonry, justified rows and an even grid, with a fullscreen button

Client proofing without accounts

Mark a gallery as a proofing gallery and give it a password. Framelight copies the password into WordPress's own post password, hides the gallery from the public portfolio and marks it noindex. Clients tap a heart on every photo they love, see the count against what their package includes and send the list to you by email, or copy it.

The private gallery gate: a lock icon, a password field and an Open gallery button over the cover photograph

Packages and session booking

Packages are their own post type: price, session length, what is included, add-ons, delivery, deposit and FAQs. Each package page has a sticky booking card with the request form, and the pricing page adds a comparison table. Requests are stored privately and emailed to you.

A Framelight package page with price, session length, delivery and deposit over the lead photograph

The packages pricing page with three plans and a highlighted most-booked package

A prints shop that looks like prints

WooCommerce products are styled as prints on a museum mat, with a size selector, a slide-out mini cart and downloadable guides.

The print shop with archival prints on a museum mat and a clear price on every card

What you get

  • Free download with a one-click demo: 9 pages, 9 galleries, 6 packages, 2 photographers, 10 products and 26 block patterns.
  • Photo Hero on every page, light motion that respects reduced motion, and no 3D or WebGL.
  • Self-hosted fonts, about 15 KB of JavaScript at start and lazy-loaded images.
  • A child theme, documentation and free-licence demo photos with credits.

Frequently asked questions

The complete source code (version 1.0.0) as a download from your account, with the setup and usage guides shown on this page. It is free: sign in to download it.

Buying guides: 3D and motion WordPress themes for Elementor and WooCommerce

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