---
title: "Fashion Photographer"
description: "Photographs clothing, accessories, models, and beauty products for magazines, advertising campaigns, catalogs, and e-commerce sites."
canonical: "https://nuecareer.com/careers/fashion-photographer"
last-updated: "2026-10-09T10:57:55.138Z"
---

# Fashion Photographer

**Category:** Arts, Design, Entertainment, Sports, and Media · **SOC code:** 27-4021 · **O\*NET-SOC code:** 27-4021.00

Photographs clothing, accessories, models, and beauty products for magazines, advertising campaigns, catalogs, and e-commerce sites.

Also advertised as: Editorial Photographer; E-commerce Photographer; Catalog Photographer; Commercial Fashion Photographer; Beauty Photographer.

## At a glance

- **Median annual wage:** $44,660 (BLS OEWS, May 2025)
- **Median hourly wage:** $21.47/hr
- **Wage range (10th–90th percentile):** $30,820 to $91,810, with the middle half between $36,050 and $62,740
- **Total US employment:** 51,760
- **Typical entry education:** High school
- **Preparation required:** Some preparation — O\*NET rates this "Job Zone Three: Medium Preparation Needed"
- **Projected growth:** -0.7% over 2025–2035 (BLS EP, 2025–2035)
- **Annual job openings:** 10,700 openings a year
- **AI-resilience score:** 56/100 — a NueCareer heuristic over O\*NET work activities and context, not a BLS or O\*NET figure

## Pay

National wage distribution, BLS OEWS, May 2025, across 51,760 US jobs.

| Percentile | Annual wage |
| --- | --- |
| 10th | $30,820 |
| 25th | $36,050 |
| 50th (median) | $44,660 |
| 75th | $62,740 |
| 90th | $91,810 |
| Mean (average) | $55,410 |

### Pay by state

The 15 highest-paying states, by median annual wage. The cost-of-living-adjusted column divides the state median by that state's BEA Regional Price Parity, so the columns answer different questions: the first is what the job pays there, the second is what that pay buys there.

| State | Median annual wage | Cost-of-living adjusted | Employment |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| DC | $110,970 | $100,973 | 260 |
| NY | $60,050 | $55,643 | 3,650 |
| MA | $57,990 | $54,833 | 830 |
| OR | $53,630 | $51,886 | 510 |
| UT | $52,140 | $52,739 | 660 |
| DE | $50,100 | $50,196 | 180 |
| CT | $49,790 | $48,055 | 630 |
| NM | $48,090 | $52,152 | 230 |
| WA | $48,050 | $44,901 | 960 |
| CA | $47,840 | $43,208 | 7,980 |
| KY | $47,170 | $52,319 | 380 |
| CO | $47,070 | $45,676 | 1,140 |
| ME | $46,680 | $48,099 | 180 |
| VA | $46,550 | $46,042 | 1,580 |
| MN | $46,470 | $47,120 | 730 |

35 more states with published wage data are omitted here. The full table for all 50 states is at https://nuecareer.com/careers/fashion-photographer/salary-by-state, or as JSON at https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/fashion-photographer.

## Outlook

BLS projects employment to move from 145,000 in the 2025–2035 base year to 144,000 by the end of the cycle — a loss of 1,000 jobs, or -0.7%. Declining: -0.7% against 3.5% projected for all occupations over the same cycle. About 10,700 openings a year are expected on average, counting openings from growth as well as from workers leaving the occupation permanently. Source: BLS EP, 2025–2035.

## How to get in

- **Typical entry education:** High school diploma or equivalent (BLS Employment Projections).
- **Preparation level:** Some preparation — O\*NET's preparation band for this occupation is "Job Zone Three: Medium Preparation Needed".
- **Related work experience typically required:** None.
- **Typical on-the-job training:** Moderate-term on-the-job training.

### Education people in this job actually hold

O\*NET surveys incumbents, so this distribution describes who is in the job today and can differ from the BLS entry requirement above.

| Education level | Share of workers |
| --- | --- |
| Some College Courses | 27.3% |
| High School Diploma or the equivalent (such as a GED) | 18.2% |
| Post-Secondary Certificate | 13.6% |
| Associate's Degree or other 2-year degree | 13.6% |
| Bachelor's Degree | 13.6% |
| Less than a High School Diploma | 9.1% |

## What the work involves

- Plan shoot concepts with creative directors and stylists
- Design and set up studio and location lighting
- Direct models on poses and expression
- Shoot product images to a consistent e-commerce standard
- Edit and retouch images or direct retouchers
- Prepare estimates, contracts, and image licensing terms
- Market services and build relationships with agencies and brands

## Skills and knowledge

### Essential skills

- Active Listening — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Speaking — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Reading Comprehension — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Critical Thinking — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Learning — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Monitoring — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Writing — importance 2.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Learning Strategies — importance 2.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Transferable skills

These are the skills that carry into other occupations, and they drive the related-occupation and career-change rankings on this site.

- Service Orientation — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Social Perceptiveness — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Complex Problem Solving — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Judgment and Decision Making — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Coordination — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Time Management — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Persuasion — importance 2.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Instructing — importance 2.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Knowledge areas

- Customer and Personal Service — importance 4.7 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Sales and Marketing — importance 4.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Computers and Electronics — importance 4.2 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Administration and Management — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- English Language — importance 3.7 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Communications and Media — importance 3.7 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Abilities

- Near Vision — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Oral Expression — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Originality — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Visualization — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Far Vision — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Oral Comprehension — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

## Who it suits

O\*NET rates every occupation on the six Holland (RIASEC) interest areas, on a 1–7 scale. This occupation's strongest areas are Realistic (R), Artistic (A), Conventional (C).

| Interest area | Score (1–7) |
| --- | --- |
| R — Realistic | 5.54 |
| A — Artistic | 5.50 |
| C — Conventional | 3.35 |
| E — Enterprising | 3.04 |
| I — Investigative | 2.18 |
| S — Social | 1.94 |

### Personality fit

These scores are **derived by NueCareer**, not published by any government agency: they are cosine similarities between a personality type's trait profile and this occupation's O\*NET interest and work-style ratings, expressed 0–100. Treat them as a starting point for exploration, not as evidence that a type belongs in a job.

| Type | Fit score (0–100) |
| --- | --- |
| INTP | 64.3 |
| ISTP | 63.3 |
| INTJ | 61.7 |
| ISFP | 57.6 |
| INFP | 57.5 |

Best-fitting types: INTP, ISTP, INTJ.

## Related occupations

O\*NET's primary related occupations, in its own ranked order.

- [Photographer](https://nuecareer.com/careers/photographer) — median $44,660
- [Photographic Process Worker and Processing Machine Operator](https://nuecareer.com/careers/photographic-process-worker-and-processing-machine-operator) — median $40,610
- [Fine Artist, Including Painters, Sculptors, and Illustrators](https://nuecareer.com/careers/fine-artist) — median $55,490
- [Graphic Designer](https://nuecareer.com/careers/graphic-designer) — median $62,960
- [Special Effects Artist and Animator](https://nuecareer.com/careers/special-effects-artist-and-animator) — median $102,030
- [Art Director](https://nuecareer.com/careers/art-director) — median $114,850
- [Prepress Technician and Worker](https://nuecareer.com/careers/prepress-technician-and-worker) — median $48,690
- [Film and Video Editor](https://nuecareer.com/careers/film-and-video-editor) — median $75,420
- [Craft Artist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/craft-artist) — median $46,080
- [Camera Operator, Television, Video, and Film](https://nuecareer.com/careers/camera-operator-television-video-and-film) — median $74,990

## Sources

- **O\*NET** — O\*NET 31.0 Database, August 2026. https://www.onetcenter.org/database.html
- **BLS OEWS** — BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025. https://www.bls.gov/oes/
- **BLS EP** — BLS Employment Projections, Table 1.2, 2025–2035. https://www.bls.gov/emp/
- **BEA RPP** — BEA Regional Price Parities by State, 2024. https://www.bea.gov/data/prices-inflation/regional-price-parities-state-and-metro-area

---

This bank includes information from the O\*NET 31.0 Database by the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration (USDOL/ETA). Used under the CC BY 4.0 license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). O\*NET® is a trademark of USDOL/ETA. NueCareer has transformed the data by joining it to BLS wage and projection data and deriving facet, personality-fit and AI-resilience scores. BLS and BEA data are public domain (17 U.S.C. §105).

O\*NET content is used under [CC BY 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). How these figures are sourced and derived: https://nuecareer.com/careers/methodology

JSON representation of this page: https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/fashion-photographer