Occupation / job
Photographers
Median annual pay. Half earn less than this.
Hourly at a standard 2,080-hour year. We do not yet have unpaid-time or cost data for this, so this is not an adjusted figure.
The middle half. A quarter earn below this range.
Source: BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025 · view
What this figure cannot tell you
It covers people EMPLOYED in this occupation. Anyone who trained for it and was never hired is not in the median above, and neither is anyone doing the work self-employed. No verified count of qualified people exists for this occupation, so this page shows none rather than an estimate. Why that matters · The occupations where we could source it
Who this suits
At $44,660, Photographers lands just under the $50,020 national midpoint — $5,360 apart, inside the range a single promotion or a move between states closes.
51,760 people are employed as Photographers. At that scale every large metro has a real market, and the difference between a good year and a bad one is usually which employer you are at rather than whether anyone is hiring.
Media equipment work suits people who like being the reason a broadcast, a shoot or a show technically works, and who are fine with nobody noticing when it does.
No verified preparation time is on file for Photographers. The wage survey behind every figure on this page asks employers what they pay, not what they required, so the honest answer here is that we do not know.
Who should not do this
A quarter of the field earns under $36,050 and a quarter over $62,740: $26,690 between them, a ratio of 1.7x. Wide enough that the first offer you get tells you more about your prospects than the median does.
The 25th percentile is $36,050 — $17.33 an hour, and $13,970 below the $50,020 typical American job. Entry-level in this field means that number, not the midpoint, so budget against it.
Avoid it if unsociable hours would not work — the production schedule is not yours to set.
No failure rate is shown, and the absence is deliberate: the 51,760 figure counts people already working as Photographers, not everyone who trained and never got hired. Without a licensing register to divide by, a rate here would be an invented denominator.
What the spread tells you
From $36,050 to $62,740 at a ratio of 1.7x is wide enough that two people with the same job title have materially different jobs. $44,660 sits in the middle of that and describes neither of them especially well.
The middle half of this field earns between $36,050 and $62,740. That is $26,690 of range, with $44,660 sitting inside it as the point half the field is above and half below.
The 75th percentile is $62,740. Reaching it from the $44,660 midpoint is $18,080 a year; reaching it from the $36,050 that the bottom quarter of Photographers earn is $26,690.
From $44,660 the drop to $36,050 is $8,610 and the climb to $62,740 is $18,080. When the upper half of the range is that much longer, the average is pulled well above the median — which is exactly why this site publishes the median.
Per hour at a standard full-time year that is $21.47 at the midpoint for Photographers, $17.33 at the 25th percentile and $30.16 at the 75th, against $24.04 for the typical American job.
What these figures are, and what they are not
This is payroll data: it comes from employers, about people they employ. Anyone doing the work of Photographers for themselves is not in it, and there is no reason to assume $44,660 describes them.
The hourly number on this page is $44,660 divided by a 2,080-hour year and nothing more. We hold no unpaid-hours or cost data for Photographers, so it is arithmetic rather than an effective rate.
How this is calculated · Self-employment failure rates · What credentials cost and pay back · Look up something else