Motaphoto

OpenClassrooms project context :
As a freelance WordPress developer, I supported Nathalie Mota, an event photographer, in the complete recreation of her website after she lost her previous platform. The goal was to build a reliable, high-performance, and manageable website that could handle a large photo catalog while delivering a smooth experience for her clients.

The website had to address several critical challenges:

• managing a large volume of photos through a simple admin interface;
• enabling smooth navigation without page reloads;
• delivering an immersive experience with a lightbox and fullscreen display;
• implementing dynamic filtering logic for categories, formats, and sorting;
• meeting performance and green coding requirements, especially with heavy image assets and optimized API calls.

I developed a custom WordPress theme tailored to the client’s business needs.

More specifically, I:

• created a structured photo management system with categories, formats, and custom metadata;
• built a dynamic catalog with AJAX filters for categories, formats, and date sorting, without page reloads;
• implemented a progressive loading system with a Load More feature;
• designed a fullscreen lightbox with navigation between photos;
• developed a dedicated single photo page including:
• • metadata display,
  • next/previous navigation,
  • hover preview;
• integrated a dynamic contact modal with automatic photo reference pre-filling;
• displayed related photos based on category;
• optimized performance through:
• • image compression and responsive adaptation,
  • limiting WordPress API requests to necessary interactions only;
• followed the Figma mockups in a responsive implementation for desktop and mobile;
• versioned the project with GitHub and prepared a full export of the website and database.

The Motaphoto website allows the photographer to manage her catalog efficiently while providing a smooth and professional user experience. Performance was optimized despite the large media volume, and the website architecture ensures scalability and client autonomy. This project combines UX, performance, and advanced business logic.