Skip to content
man bot

Technicians and associate professionals · code 3431

Photographers

Photographers operate still cameras to photograph people, events, scenes, materials, products and other subjects. Tasks include - (a) taking photographs for advertising or other commercial, industrial or scientific purposes and to illustrate stories and articles in newspapers, magazines and other publications; (b) taking portrait photographs of persons and groups of persons; (c) studying requirements of a particular assignment and decide on type of camera, film, lighting and background accessories to be used; (d) determining picture composition, making technical adjustments to equipment and photograph subject; (e) operating scanners to transfer photographic images to computers; (f) operating computers to manipulate photographic images; (g) adapting existing photographic images to create new digitized images to be included in multimedia products; (h) using airbrush, computer or other techniques to create the desired visual effect. Examples of the occupations classified here: - Aerial photographer - Commercial photographer - Industrial photographer - Photojournalist - Photographer - Portrait photographer - Scientific photographer Some related occupations classified elsewhere: - Film camera operator - 3521 - Video camera operator - 3521 - Photographic equipment repairer - 7311 - Photogravure photographer - 7321 - Photolithographer - 7321 - Electronics mechanic - 7421

The mildest of the ILO’s four “exposed” groups. It ranks 322 of 427 for holding up against AI.

Also known as

  • photographer
  • photojournalist

Job titles from the EU's ESCO list. Search for any of them on the jobs page and you'll end up here.

61
Holds up
against AI Exposed: Gradient 1

AI could take on 39 of 100, on average
so it holds up at 100 − 39 = 61

That's the whole sum, and you can check it against the ILO's study.

47.3
How hands-on
out of 100

From O*NET, matched to one US job

34.2
How fiddly
and cramped

finger skill 41.1 · hand skill 41.1 · cramped spaces 20.3 · averaged

Kind of hands-on work · hands-on under 50 Less than half hands-on

Less than half of this job is hands-on. Robots still matter, but for a smaller part of the work, so we don't sort it any further.

estimated O*NET 31.0 BLS occupational crosswalk chain ISCO-08 to 2010 SOC (Aug 2012, rev. Jun 2015); 2010 to 2018 SOC (Nov 2017); O*NET-SOC 2019 taxonomy data 0.7-work-setting measures chosen by Frey & Osborne (2017) · the grouping is a sorting, not a measurement

What this number leaves out This job rates 47.3 out of 100 for how hands-on it is. The score above only looks at AI tools, not robots, but for work this far from the physical that matters less.

The tasks behind the score

The score is the average of these. A job is really a bundle of tasks, and an average can hide how uneven that bundle is.

The task AI could do most of scores 56.5, while the average is 39. A big gap means some of this job is wide open to AI and some of it barely at all. That's quite different from a job where everything sits somewhere in the middle, even when the averages match.

  1. 56.5

    Operating scanners to transfer photographic images to computers

    Medium
  2. 56

    Adapting existing photographic images to create new digitized images to be included in multimedia products

    Medium
  3. 43.5

    Operating computers to manipulate photographic images

    Low
  4. 35

    Determining picture composition, making technical adjustments to equipment and photograph subject

    Low
  5. 33.3

    Taking photographs for advertising, or other commercial, industrial or scientific purposes and to illustrate stories and articles in newspapers, magazines and other publications

    Low
  6. 33

    Studying requirements of a particular assignment and decide on type of camera, film, lighting and background accessories to be used

    Low
  7. 30

    Using airbrush, computer or other techniques to create the desired visual effect.

    Low
  8. 25

    Taking portrait photographs of persons and groups of persons

    Low

8 tasks · the High to Very Low labels are the ILO's

from the source Working Paper 140, Generative AI and Jobs 2025 index data 0.7-work-setting

Helped, or replaced?

The score above can't tell a tool that makes you faster from one that does the task instead of you. Jobs and Skills Australia looked at those two things separately, and this is their result, matched to this job.

2 Australian jobs match this one, and we've simply averaged them. Treat the numbers as a rough guide.

AI helps you
61
AI does it for you
27

Helping wins by 34 points.

estimated Our Gen AI Transition (Gen AI Capacity Study) September 2025 detailed data release data 0.7-work-setting matched to Australian jobs 2113, 3999

Compared with similar jobs

There are 82 jobs in the “Technicians and associate professionals” group, averaging 65.4. This one is below that.