← Creative and media

ANZSCO 2114Skill level 1Creative and media

Photographer

Produce commercial, editorial and creative photography for clients in print, screen and online media.

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Salary

Cited figures from Job Outlook and QILT. ExamExplained does not publish predictive earnings or projections.

FigureAUDSource
Full-time weekly earnings$1350Job Outlook (2025-06-01)

How far does this stretch in each city?

What a photographer actually does

Most working photographers are self-employed and run the work in three phases: pitching and admin, shooting, and post-production. A shoot day might be a 4-hour newborn session at a home, a half-day product shoot in a studio, or a 10-hour wedding running from ceremony to reception. After every shoot comes the longer phase of ingest, culling, edit and retouch in Lightroom and Photoshop, which can take 1-3 hours per hour of shooting. Commercial and editorial photographers do more pre-production (location scouts, mood boards, permits) and team shoots with a stylist and assistant. Wedding and family photographers do more direct client management. Hours sit at 35-45 per week on average but shift dramatically with the season (wedding season runs October to April in most states). Income is highly variable; most full-time photographers carry a second income stream for the first 3-5 years.

Typical tasks

  • Plan and run studio and location shoots.
  • Retouch images to brief.
  • Manage client billing and image rights.

Skills you'll use

  • Camera handling across DSLR or mirrorless systems
  • Lighting (natural, flash, studio strobes, continuous)
  • Lightroom for ingest, culling, colour and tone
  • Photoshop for retouching and composite work
  • Composition and on-set direction of subjects
  • Pricing, contract and image-licensing knowledge
  • Self-employed admin (invoicing, super, BAS)
  • Backup and archive workflow (multiple copies, offsite)

How to become one

  1. 1Finish Year 12 with English and at least one Visual Arts subject
  2. 2Build a personal portfolio in your final school years; assist working photographers if you can
  3. 3Complete a Diploma of Photography at TAFE or a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Photography) at RMIT, UTS, QCA or CIT
  4. 4Take on assisting work (loading flash, lugging gear) to learn shoot workflow under a working pro
  5. 5Specialise after 1-2 years (wedding, portrait, fashion, product, sport, photojournalism, real estate)
  6. 6Register as a sole trader, get an ABN, and start tracking income from year one
  7. 7Invest in backup gear (two cameras, two flashes) and insurance before taking paid client work

Where you can work

  • Self-employed sole trader (most working photographers)
  • Commercial photography studios
  • Newspapers, magazines and online publishers (press photography)
  • Agencies and in-house creative teams (e-commerce shoot days)
  • Wedding and family portrait studios
  • Real estate and architecture firms
  • Stock-image contributors (Getty, Shutterstock, Adobe Stock)
  • Schools and not-for-profits (in-house photographer)

Career progression

Typical stages and salary bands. Salary figures are sourced from Job Outlook, QILT or industry bodies; brackets are 25th-75th percentile not absolute floors or ceilings.

  1. Assistant photographer
    0-2 years
    Typical roles: Photo assistant, Studio assistant, Second shooter on weddings
    Salary band: $45,000 - $55,000 per year (source, sourced 2026-05-21)
  2. Working photographer
    3-7 years
    Typical roles: Wedding or family photographer, Commercial product or food photographer, Editorial portrait photographer, Staff press photographer
    Salary band: $60,000 - $90,000 per year (source, sourced 2026-05-21)
  3. Established photographer
    8+ years
    Typical roles: Senior commercial photographer, Award-winning wedding or portrait photographer, Photojournalist with major outlet, Studio owner

Is this for you?

You might love this if

  • You see light and composition everywhere already
  • You enjoy directing strangers in front of a camera
  • You can run yourself as a small business (tax, marketing, insurance)
  • You don't mind long edit nights after a long shoot day
  • You can carry 15-25kg of gear all day and still be friendly to clients

This might not suit you if

  • You want a salaried role with a guaranteed schedule
  • You hate self-promotion, social media and chasing leads
  • You can't deal with seasonal income gaps
  • You can't take "make it brighter" notes from a client who doesn't know what they mean
  • You expect a saturated market to pay top dollar for unspecialised work

Three ways in

Uni, TAFE and trade routes for photographer. Not every career has all three; we only list pathways that actually lead to this occupation.

University

Bachelor degrees that lead to this career.

TAFE / VET

Nationally accredited Certificate and Diploma qualifications.

Apprenticeship trade

Earn while you learn through an Australian Apprenticeship.

Not an apprenticeship trade.

Sources

ExamExplained does not publish predictive salary figures. For current Australian earnings data check Job Outlook directly. Career classifications follow the ABS ANZSCO 2022 release.