The Power of Photography, Translation and Contributing for WordPress

Abha:
Hello. And we are here for another episode of the WordPress way on do the Woo. And today we’ve traveled to India and in the studio we have Bigul Malayi and we also have Gautham Navada. And they are joining us from different parts of India, but actually have quite a lot in common that we’ll be talking about in this show. So I’m gonna go first of all to something that unites both of our panelists today, is a love of working in the community. And after all, we’re all here to do the same. We enjoy contributing with people from all across the world. And our two guests today have certainly done that. I’m gonna go first of all to Bigul. I saw a little message yesterday that you’d hit a new record. Now, I’m not asking you to sing. Well, not yet anyway. I may still ask you to do that. That you now have 1500 photographs in the WordPress photo directory. Is that right?

Bigul:
Not 1500, it’s 1300 and yeah, literally 6. Percentage of the photos are from myself.

Abha:
I’m sure by the time we probably get on air, it’s probably increased to what I thought it was. You are prolific photographer, so congratulations on that. But I know from working with you in WordPress that it’s not about the number of photos for you, it’s about representing the different countries, the cultures, helping spread that message of belonging and sharing. Cultures.

Bigul:
Yeah, exactly. I agree with you. The biggest passion is one of my biggest passion. So it’s a pleasure to be part of the Red Cross community always.

Abha:
And of course, Gautham. You’re no stranger to the photo directory either. I’ve definitely, as a moderator, seen your pictures as well as Beagles as well. So how long have you been contributing now to WordPress Photos?

Gautham:
WordPress Photos? I started very recently, maybe after attending few Word camps, especially after attending WordCamp Bangalore in 2024. So that’s where I got to know. Oh, we have a photo directory as well. Let’s do something. So I started very slowly but I’m nowhere close to Google. Maybe 0.0001% of what he has done.

Abha:
But every photo is completely valuable. And of course I’m sure that Vigil would agree with me as one of the new team reps for this year as well.

Bigul:
I totally agree with you. For example, recently we had a new contributor join from Kolhapur. He’s a professional photographer. He. He has just part of the moderating team. Also his name is Nilos and he contributed some awesome photos about Indian birds. So if you go to the photo directory just, just check for. Just check now so you can find a lot of good photos. Awesome photos from Indian birds about Indian birds. It’s from Kuala Pool so it’s wonderful. So each con, each contribution values. That’s the best thing about WordPress. For example, if you translate a string you will get a badge. If you contribute a photo, you will get a badge. So each contribution is valuable.

Abha:
And for those of you who have not yet discovered the Photo Directory, it’s a wonderful resource, not just as a photographer or an amateur photographer wanting to get more practice. If you have a blog site and you need photos, then the WordPress photo directory is there for you. It can be available for filling in the bits that you don’t have photos of. It can give you inspiration. You can look at practicing with different patterns using WordPress. And there’s just so much more that it offers. The WordPress photo directory has not been going that long, but in the time it has, it really has brought people together and as Gautham talked about, it’s something that is increasingly popular at WordCamp contributor day. So if you are heading towards a contributor day or you took part in one and you have photos that show the beautiful sites that are around there, why not have a go? There’s lots and lots of information on the site about all what kind of photos are acceptable. We don’t use pictures of people and we don’t overtly promote brands, but there’s a lot of photos that would be available for you to be able to share on the topic of photos. One of the reasons that we’re starting the show with that is because we’re trying to encourage contributors to that, but also because it shows that developers and people who work in support actually can be really interesting in other areas too. And both of you come from that developer support background as well. And it’s just really nice to have you both on the show talking about how you’ve used WordPress, how you support the use of WooCommerce as well in terms of the plugins, but also that you found things that are completely opposite to what you do in your day job, but still linked to WordPress. So, Gautham, I’m going to come to you first. You’ve been contributing in Polyglots, which Dale’s word translation of WordPress for quite a few years. And you and I have come across each other for WordPress translation days and all sorts. And I know you are incredibly enthusiastic about getting people to translate WordPress. What is it that keeps you working as a dev, as a product manager in this space and wanting to use this product?

Gautham:
It all started maybe in 2011 or 12 when I was still doing HTML websites, normal blogs and other things. I finally jumped into WordPress. It was all in English. I am basically from a Canada background, but I’ve learned English in my schools and other things. We were basically starting to develop websites on WordPress. So it all started with building up client base. Then we built up my agency around it and all those things. And in the recent days we also had built lots of news portals where we publish news about the local happenings and other things. And most of the news portal people are from a journalism background and they might be not so much into tech. Some of them always had a question like, it’s all good, but can we have it in our language? We were like, that might be possible, but I’m not sure yet because I was not into that community and other things. I had no idea. All I knew was go to WordPress.org, download the package, host it on their site. That’s done so. And recently and during the COVID times, I came across this WP translation Day, that event which was happening. I jumped in and then I found out, oh, I need not wait for somebody to come and translate this package in my language. It’s up to me. I can also do it. I was like, wow. Then we started slowly. I started linking up with Mr. Suresha from the Bangalore community. So we had a small internal competition. I was like, suresha, Sir, I contributed 100 strings today. He was like, no, let me make it 120. We started like that slowly. It took almost one to two years. We were in that competition game. The first version which was probably released in WordPress was in 2012 or 13 I guess. But I am very happy to share. Recently, March 18th or so or the second week of March, all these contributions were fruitful and we were able to release WordPress 6.7 in Canada for the very first time. And that’s how it started. It’s like basically wanting this powerful engine to be in my language so that people who are maybe not so good at English or any other language will not take a step backward just because of the language part. Because WordPress is beautiful. We all know that the language should not be a barrier. That’s how it started. And even people ask me are you mad? Like you’re doing all those things. Somebody also told me like if I go to the KN locale you have like 3,600 strings contributed. You might have gone mad or something. But my point is a one mad person can bring in lot of mad person and only the people of that mentality contributed something. And we were able to release recent version in Kannada.

Abha:
That’s brilliant that you’ve got 6.7 and of course at the time of recording 6.8 has just had beta 3. And by the time this comes out we should be in RC stage. And of course I will be joined by people on the release squad and we’ll be talking about 6.8 which no doubt Gautham and his colleagues will be starting translating soon too.

Gautham:
Yeah, already.

Abha:
So thank you Gautam. Just going back to Beagle. One of the things that always interests me is that people come into WordPress from so many different directions and they find their own path. And you’ve been in lots of teams. You started in the community team actually with support inquiries and then went and discovered a community team which is completely different to your day job because in your day job you do support for one of the WordPress companies. And how did you find learning new skills? Was it something that you were encouraged both at work and in the community? And what would your advice be to people thinking about? Well, I’d quite like to do something, but I don’t want to do the same that I do in my day job.

Bigul:
Yeah, the first thing is that from the first thing is that from the beginning I have a feeling that want to contribute to some open source technologies. Initially I had a feeling that I had a wrong thing thinking that only a developer can contribute to an open source project or a software. So when I was attending an open source conference long back in 2010 time in Bangalore, I met few people from PHP Doc team. Actually they changed my mindset. If only a developer can contribute, then who will design, who will test, who will document? That was their initial reply to me. That changed my thought and after that I started to contribute to initially WordPress support team in the support I replied few hundreds of tickets in the past. Then I started to become a FO team member and then community restarted community in Kerala and now there are four active media groups in different cities of Kerala. We organized a few meet 100 plus meters in different cities. I have organized multiple webcams that give me a lot of knowledge, that give me a lot of courage and and I was able to meet a lot of people and got a chance to interact with the people from different background. And also I got a chance to attend many vacants. That is also given me a new eye towards the world. That changed me a lot because I am from a village background. I studied in a normal school Abha and Gautham novel. So actually my thought, my thinking process, everything changed after I become part of this versatile community. What to say? Young and always thinking positively. Lot of new things. And one of the positive things from their side was a photo contribution. A photo if you are a photographer or if you have a good smartphone because nowadays everybody travel a lot and everybody click a lot. So if you have a good smartphone or if you have a few hundred few photos with you, you can be part of that description project that is totally tremendous. So the way changed and a lot of people I was able to exchange this message. I was part of multiple photo walk here. So that encouraged a note and I become part of moderating team. Now I’m from rep also. So lot of industry stuff happened in the last two years because of this. And also personally I also started to take better photos than before.

Abha:
So not only is it a fun thing to do, contributing to WordPress photo directory, even good photographers can get chances to do different kinds of photography. You can improve your photography as Bigul has talked about, but you can also volunteer to be a WordCamp photographer. So I know one of the other photo team reps this year is Nilo and I have lost track how many times I have seen him at WordCamps taking photos and it lives and breathes and is amazing to see. And I know that when we also do the big WordCamp photograph, it’s a question of spotting where he is, what. What thing has he climbed on to take that picture. So there’s lots and lots of ways that you can be involved. And if you are more interested in moderating photos, there’s opportunities to do that too. And there’s training. We’re going to put some links in the channel as well and a little bit more about WordPress photo directory for people who are not familiar with it yet.

So if you’ve just tuned in, you’re listening to do The Woo the WordPress Way and I’m Abha Thakor and we’re in India today with Gautham, Nevada and Beagle Malai. So we’re having a great time about talking about WordPress photos but now we’re going to have a bit more of an in depth talk about how do you make that jump from just thinking about your locality and where you are and where you what you know as you grow up to actually working on products that are international. How do you help colleagues who are making that transition as well? Because it’s not an easy transition sometimes and that’s just from both sides of the fence that sometimes different cultures don’t necessarily know what’s going to bring them together. Now you both work for firms that have people from all over the world and you’ve also been to different word camps. Beagle, you’ve talked about how you came from a very small village and WordPress opened your horizons to what was possible and you’ve obviously now done WordCamp speaking as well. And congratulations on the ones that you’ve just been accepted for too. What would be your advice if people are setting up new stores, new companies looking at products that they can offer using WooCommerce, what would your advice be to them in terms of thinking a little bit beyond their immediate knowledge and their immediate area?

Bigul:
The best thing about WordPress is that the resource so you will find lot of resources here. For example, if you search just about WooCommerce you can find hundreds of tutorials and very lot of contributors are here to help and you can part of different channels so it is always open to people so you will not be find ignored here. You can be part of different team, you can be part of different contribution and you will be getting new advices from each person. And Here there are 100 plus success stories from different backgrounds. For example, if you go to the Europas you can find success stories from more than 200 or 300 people from different part of the globe. That is the best thing about the you don’t feel the ignored, you can just join to the wonderful team. You will get enough resources and be open always. So you will not be find ignored or you will not be feeling awkward.

Abha:
And that’s really important. And we have things like the teams that are there to help people feel included. So there is lots of help. Just taking that a little bit further and looking at how that works in the workplace. Gautham, you’ve worked on lots of different products and I know you and I have talked before about when you’re launching new products, particularly ones that involve WooCommerce, that you can apply them to different target markets even if your own background isn’t necessarily in those markets. How have you approached that in terms of your journey with WooCommerce?

Gautham:
Yeah, very nice question. We are building websites on WordPress. It’s been a decade now, maybe April Midweek, we celebrate 10 years in the WordPress industry building WordPress websites. So initially when we started the same question arise like at that time maybe way back in 2015, oh, WordPress is like new. You don’t know what is going to happen. Are you sure you want to take this as a core development tool for your company? You could have gone to core php, you could go on to Laravel, you could go to that this and all. But way back then we also jumped around lots of other technologies. But later I decided that instead of being a jack of all and a master of none, let’s give WordPress a chance. So maybe after 2016, 17 we decided whatever projects we do, we try to bring it onto WordPress and if that is not going to happen on WordPress we have left so many projects. It is not that WordPress is not capable, but sometimes the client were like oh, I’ve heard WordPress is weak, WordPress is new, the community, blah, blah, all those things. But keeping on to this strict agenda, what we have, we started doing that maybe we have built more than 300, 350 websites on WordPress including big brands, including. We have built a couple of projects for the state government of Karnataka on WordPress. So that is like a testimony for people like oh, WordPress is not secure. We are running like a 3000 page website almost belonging to a major department of Karnataka state government on WordPress. And then slowly after 2018 19, we started getting inquiries about developing e commerce solutions. I am already a WordPress guy. I am like, boss, there is WooCommerce. We build it on you.

Abha:
I’ve heard you’re a Woo guy as well.

Gautham:
Yeah, yeah. So the same thing when people started approaching like we have to build a E commerce portal. People are like, I’m a WordPress guy already. I suggested them we go with WooCommerce. The same thing repeated like, oh, WooCommerce is new. You don’t know what is going to happen. Is it scalable? I have 10,000 SKUs. Is it able to manage it? It still uses that backend. This backend. I mean they were not able to understand the simplicity what we have. They are just talking about what somebody told them. But I was like, no, if I’m going to build it, you’ll build it on WooCommerce. If something goes wrong, you will have 100% refund from my development piece. Starting from that, we started building up a portal. I can give a very strong testimony of one of our clients in the west. It was a grocery store. They were based out in Canada. They had a problem where during the winters they had to close their stores because of their huge snow. So they approached us like, can we go online during that months only so that my business should keep on going. So I suggested them WooCommerce. They’re like, we’ll go with Magento, will go with Shopify, all those things. And finally they agreed to go with WooCommerce. It’s been like four or five years with us now. They started from $1 per year, $2 per year. Recently when I’ve checked, they’ve crossed like maybe it might be a confidential, but for me it’s a very big achievement. They’re crossing like $2.5 million in sales every year, something like that. Now sometimes I go back and ask them, so do you think WooCommerce was not good for you? Then they were like, no, boss, WooCommerce is like the lifesaver for us. We had so many such testimonies where initially people having doubt I was pushing them and now they are literally making maybe minting money out of it.

Abha:
Well, it’s brilliant to hear how enthusiastic you are, Gautam about this and I know you and I have been talking about a follow up on this. So we watch this space. We’re going to bring more on just how you can tailor WooCommerce as well. So thank you for all your enthusiasm. One of the things that is always interesting with when people start using WooCommerce not just as a developer but also as Bigul already does as well in terms of supporting its use as a plugin. When you’ve got a plugin that you have to make sure is compatible is understanding the package. Now I’ve spoken to many people in the preparation for this. I did a bit of a quick poll and to find out whether people really understood that if you already use WordPress adding WooCommerce is actually not that difficult and you’re not starting from scratch. So I’m going to go to Beagle first of all because he’s nodding away at me in the studio and I know that you do a lot of support work in this area anyway. So when people are looking at the, you know the obviously the some of the tools that you do in your company already and they want to add WooCommerce or you’re looking at compatibility, how big a benefit is it that they use that common base in the first place?

Bigul:
Actually I got an opportunity to work with WooCommerce for last 13 years when it is just started. I was seeing the growth from the beginning. So when I when using it was just a small store and it is now grown to the most widely used E commerce application. Recently I read that there are more stores in WooCommerce than Voice Commerce and Magento. So see the growth from a plugin. Now it is kind of a standalone thing or must need the thing for the WordPress. And personally most of the days I will be getting a chance to help our clients. They are working with WooCommerce because we have a compatibility plugin for WooCommerce that makes the WooCommerce multi language. So most of the days I will be helping people from different background. So I have seen small stores with the product of five or ten to thousands of products. So that’s fantastic. Yeah, so I can see how powerful it will be. So it can handle from a small store to a mega shop. It will not be a bet.

Abha:
And that’s partly why today we’re talking about photos and translation. Because sometimes people don’t realize that photos not only tell a thousand words but also they can do that cross cultural communication that words can be more difficult or have more problems to do. And of course there are translation tools that you can use. There is WordPress available in different languages and all these things are ones that WordPress and WooCommerce benefit from, build on and also encompass in terms of how we look at the market. So I know both of you are very keen in terms of when you’re working in your day jobs, of not just looking inward into your own country, as important as that is, but also looking into opportunities, looking how your clients can be helped who are not in India, who. But who may not be familiar with the fact that it can operate. They can have clients in your part of India because of the fact that the translation is available. And that translation is also very helpful, of course, for WooCommerce too. I know when you were expanding your company and you were looking at new products and you built a few new things recently on using the WooCommerce model as well, you were keen to look at how customers could cross promote, could actually buy things from different parts of the markets that you were addressing, but also how you could do specialist things so that communities that needed that specialist information could still have that. And from what we’ve spoken about before, WooCommerce does all of that, doesn’t it? Do you want to tell us a bit more about your experience of that?

Gautham:
Absolutely. I’ll continue the story where we are still building the websites for clients and other things. People started approaching like, you’re building so many sites. Why don’t you build a site where we can buy some things which I’m not getting in the big players in the market? Like for example, Bigul is staying in a remote village, but his relatives are staying in a metro city. Every time when we come back to the hometown, we used to carry so many things like rare items which is only available in the hometown. And even if you pay 2x3x price, you will not get it in the metro cities. There are so many items like that, especially like pickles, puppets or even so many. If you keep on talking about that, you will have a very big list. But everyone usually has that gap in the market where I cannot get this online anywhere. So why don’t we build a platform where we can get all these things right at our doorstep? So we started a project called Urmani Angri. So Urmani Angri literally translates to hometown’s shop. So our main agenda was that the SKUs will be in such a way that you will not find it anywhere else. So we will list only such shows, such kind of items, so that people from my hometown sitting anywhere in the country can order it, can taste it, can eat it, and have a feeling like, yeah, I am not missing my hometown. It started as a small hobby project back in 2018 and again it is entirely on WooCommerce. Initially we had a concept where we will maintain a warehouse and other things but we were not able to do that. Then we quickly wanted to switch to a multi vendor platform and still WooCommerce had that option. I just had to add on a plugin and within a second I had a multi vendor solution. Presently we have around 25 to 26 vendor and we are serving to more than 20,000 pin codes all over India, be it Kashmir to Kanyakumari or from Gujarat to Sikkim and Assam. Any part in the country you say we deliver the products. All thanks to WooCommerce.

Abha:
It’s wonderful. Except now I’m hungry and I want all of those products delivered to my front door. So when you’ve got that suss, then I can have those products. I’ll be a very happy woman. And that brings us on to highlight. Of course, for those of you who haven’t heard already, we have a cooking show that we’re launching this year and Gautham already knows that I’m going to be picking his brain to be coming on that. And I heard that Bigul also has some recipes. So we will be hearing more about some of their cooking tips in that show. If you have not already expressed an interest to be on that or involved in some way, be it in recipe sharing. And of course we’ll be talking WordPress and WooCommerce along the way. Why wouldn’t we cooking WordPress? Well, eating goes together, so why not cooking? So it’s a great way of sharing our cultural links too and helping people connect. Which is part of why this show exists is to help bring that WordPress community together and to introduce some of the people that you don’t necessarily hear about and the work that they’re doing in different parts of the world. I am very aware that for my guests it is very late in their day and I’m ever so grateful for them joining us today in the studio. I’m going to have one very quick question to you both and they’re smiling at me, so it means that’s okay. So I’m going to go first of all to Bigul in terms of when you’re working on a WordPress solution or a WooCommerce issue and you’re doing a support question, what is your favorite food that you might be thinking about to keep you going through it or to eat? He didn’t expect that question. You see, Gautam didn’t tell him, which.

Bigul:
Is good for me it will be either masala dosha or biryani.

Abha:
Can we add that to the list of food that’s coming to my door? Fantastic. But it really is because we all have those moments where we’re working on something, be it also for WordPress community or the WooCommerce community. And we’re just stuck and we need that particular food item that is going to help us get over that line. So, yes, I like your choices. I may be coming back to you for recipes. Gautam, what are your food choices when.

Gautham:
You are asking that question? I’m already tasting that in the mouth and my mouth started watering when Bigul said masala dosa. I’m like, count me in, please. No South Indian will deny that masala dosa is like, wow. Plus one from my side, plus one from you.

Abha:
Okay, so I think we may have to make those on the show and as you would expect, we will find a way to connect some of those cooking things to actually developing and how we do problem solving. Because I know when I learned to cook, that’s definitely how I learned from an engineering perspective. And I was sitting there at one point having chapatis lined up, trying to make a bridge and trying to work out why it wouldn’t stay up. And it works. You know, you find great solutions, but it is about thinking outside that box. And I think that’s what WordPress gives us, that’s what WooCommerce gives us. And working in the two communities is a joy to be able to do that and to work with so many wonderful people from all over the world. So thank you to you both. I look forward to seeing you both again. We will be sharing some links about where you can find these people. They’ll also be back because we’ve got some other shows that they’re going to be interested in how to contribute to WordPress photos. We are now starting our usual collation of questions about the release for our next episode, which is on 6.8. So if you have questions, then do let us know. Again, if you are in a community that we haven’t been to recently or we haven’t heard from, then we would love to feature you. We do put a shout out for all the places that we don’t hear from regularly. And I know sometimes it’s difficult getting a good broadband connection or the time zones, but we are very committed at do the woo to trying to make that possible and very committed to that inclusion. So do look and have a look if there’s something that you would like to Talk to us about if you have a burning WooCommerce WordPress story, we’d really like to hear it. You can find our links on the do the Woo website. I’m also on Nonstop News UK. You can find me on the Make WordPress Slack as well. And do reach out to us because we really do want to come to your communities. And the final thing I have to say today is Word Camp is coming to India.

Bigul:
Yeah.

Abha:
Next year. So if your mouth is watering from those doors as Gautham is illustrating, then please get that date in your diary. In terms of thinking about Word camp Asia for 2026 it is going to Mumbai in India. Thank you to Everybody who made WordCamp Asia such a success for 2025. It is an absolute wonderful joy to see WordCamp Asia and I’m hoping we have much more WordCamps across different continents as well. So that’s it for us for today. Join us next time for our release show. Thank you Bigul. Thank you. V Gautham.

Bigul:
Thank you very much.

Gautham:
Thank you.

Bigul:
I would like to add one more point. You can find lot of restaurant from the place Gautham belongs to Udupi restaurant.

Gautham:
Oh we are famous.

Bigul:
Yeah, you can find it in I think in abroad also there will be many Udupi veg restaurants.

Gautham:
So when you say Udupi restaurant that means Udupi is the name of the place where I am from. So I am a foodie. So I told you Masalas, I cannot coffee.

Bigul:
And also.

Abha:
Well we shall put that into our research for the recipe show and for the cooking show. So it will not be wasted. But I need food now please. Thank you. Thank you gentlemen.

Bigul:
Thank you very much.

Abha:
Thank you.

Bigul:
Thanks a lot for the opportunity. Thank you very much. We should have a nice evening there. Bye bye. See you.