Photographer resume example

• Entry level

  Photographer with a BFA in photography and eighteen months assisting in a commercial studio, setting up strobes, tethering to Capture One and backing up files on set. Shoots product and portrait work for small brands on my own, delivering 40 edited images per shoot within 3 days. Looking for a studio photographer or first assistant role.

• Mid level

  Product and lifestyle photographer with six years in an in-house e-commerce studio, shooting 120 SKUs a day on white and styled sets. Builds lighting that stays consistent across seasons, runs tethered capture with color checks and retouches to brand standards in Photoshop. Cut shoot-to-site time from 9 days to 4 by reorganizing the post-production queue.

• Senior

  Commercial photographer and studio owner with twelve years of advertising, catalog and editorial work for consumer brands. Directs crews of up to 8, quotes and licenses usage for each job, and runs a 3,000 square foot studio. Billed 140 shoot days last year, most of them for clients who had booked before.

• Photojournalist to commercial

  Former newspaper staff photographer with nine years covering news, sports and features on daily deadlines, now moving into commercial and corporate work. Lights quickly in unfamiliar locations, files edited images from the field within an hour and keeps accurate captions and releases. Building a commercial book from 12 recent corporate and food shoots.

• Graduate

  Photography graduate with a senior portfolio of 30 product and food images lit with strobes and tethered to Capture One. Seeking a studio assistant or junior photographer role to learn commercial production on a busy shoot calendar.

• Weekend pro going full-time

  Self-taught portrait photographer with two years of paid weekend sessions, 70 families photographed and a booking and contract system already in place. Applying for an associate photographer role at a portrait studio to learn studio lighting and in-person sales.

• One portfolio for every kind of client

  Fix: A wedding gallery does not help a catalog studio decide, and a white-background product set does not help a newspaper. Build a separate page for each specialty you apply in, put your strongest frames first, and make sure the resume headline names the same specialty.

• Listing gear instead of output

  Fix: A list of camera bodies says little. Say what you produced: images per day on a product line, galleries delivered per season, reshoot rates and turnaround times. Name gear only where a posting asks for it, such as Profoto strobes or tethering into Capture One.

• Skipping the business side

  Fix: Many photographers run their own bookings. Show inquiries converted, repeat clients, contracts and invoices you managed, and your delivery schedule. For commercial work, mention quoting usage fees and keeping releases on file. Name the booking and contract software you use, so a studio manager knows you can take over client paperwork.

• No post-production detail

  Fix: Clients pay for finished files, not raw frames. Describe your culling and editing workflow, the color process you follow, how deep your retouching goes and the file specs you deliver. If you managed an outside retoucher, say how you checked their work against the brief.

Match these against the job posting you are applying to: the free resume checker shows which keywords your resume is missing.

Product photography

Give SKUs per day or per season and the setups you shoot on, such as a white sweep or tabletop.

Studio lighting

Name the lighting system in skills and the setups you build in a bullet about consistency or speed.

Capture One or Lightroom

Say in experience whether you tether, process raw files or manage catalogs in each.

Retouching

Describe the depth of work and the weekly or monthly volume in your latest role.

Turnaround

State your delivery window in the summary and how reliably you met it in a bullet.

Usage rights

Add one bullet on quoting or writing licenses, or on managing releases for in-house work.

Client management

Show bookings per season, repeat clients or inquiries converted under your freelance entry.

Portfolio

Put one link in the header that opens on the specialty in the posting.

• Photographed 120 apparel and home SKUs per day on white and styled sets, keeping lighting consistent across four seasons.
• Reduced shoot-to-website time from 9 days to 4 by batching retouching and setting up Capture One sessions per style.
• Booked and shot 28 weddings a season as lead photographer, delivering edited galleries of about 600 images within five weeks of each event.
• Lit and photographed 45 headshots in one day for a law firm's website, moving people through a mobile studio in 8-minute slots.
• Retouched 2,000 product images a month to brand standards in Photoshop, from dust cleanup and color matching to composite shadows.
• Quoted and wrote usage licenses for 30 commercial jobs a year by media, term and territory, with signed releases on file for every model.
• Directed a crew of 6, including a digital tech, stylist and assistants, on a two-day catalog shoot that delivered 180 final frames.
• Built a shared library of 40,000 images with keyword and naming rules, so the marketing team could find approved photos without asking.

• Edit the resume to the specialty in the posting

  An in-house corporate job, a portrait studio and an e-commerce studio each look for different proof. Before applying, put the matching specialty in your headline, reorder bullets so the closest work comes first, and use the posting's words for deliverables, such as selects, finals, SKUs or galleries. Swap in the matching portfolio page too. Tailor your resume to this studio's work

• Open with a shoot like theirs

  Start the letter by naming the kind of imagery the employer publishes and a shoot of yours that solved the same problem, such as reflective products or a large headshot day. Mention your turnaround, then point to two portfolio images by title so the reader opens the right ones. Write a photographer cover letter

• Prepare for a test shoot

  Studios often ask for a test: lighting a product on white, matching an existing style guide or running a short headshot session. Practice setups you can build in fifteen minutes. Expect interview questions on your color workflow, how you handle a reshoot request and how you back up files at the end of each day. Rehearse photographer interview answers

• Keep gear to one line

  An equipment list rarely decides a staff role, so give it one short line at the end of skills: camera system, lighting system and capture software. If a posting names a system you have used, such as Phase One or Profoto, add it to that line by name. Pull the skills this posting asks for