Custom Theme Not Allowing Image Upload or Display

We had a custom theme developed for my site by a contractor. The theme looks great and we are now trying to add an image gallery to the site. The main (home) page was created using Elementor.

When we try to add images to the image gallery we get the following error: Unable to create directory uploads/2019/06. Is its parent directory writable by the server?

In the Elementor System Info screen there is a message that reads:

Write Permissions: There are some writing permissions issues with the following directories/files:
– WordPress root uploads directory

We have checked the permissions for this directory and they are 755.

We installed a fresh copy of WordPress (5.2.2) and copied the theme to this new installation. This copy does not have the issue and there are no error messages. We didn’t copy the DB over so the whole site looks messed up because we only copied the content.

We tried uploading the files to the Media folder – and they are there – and when you go to Elementor’s media folder to add things to the carousel, they aren’t showing as available.

We are not extremely familiar with WP and are unsure how to proceed to get the permissions corrected – if indeed that is the issue, or how to display the files in the Media Library inside Elementor.

Ultimately we want to be able to upload the images in #Elementor and add an image carousel to the page we are building.

Can add more detail if needed, just not sure what to provide to the community to get answers.

Thanks in advance.