Personality, perseverance and patience are all essential, and dedication is needed to get a foot in the door. Although freelance work may be solitary at times, photographers also need the ability to blend quickly into work teams and to build rapport with different people, for example when working on shoots.

The impact of digital technology has revolutionised the industry. In many areas, such as editorial and sports photography, digital technology dominates. Film is still sometimes used though in fine art and some studio-based photography, and shooting with film is even becoming an alternative trend.

It is now the norm for images to be supplied in digital format, which is likely to involve image manipulation using software packages such as Adobe Photoshop after the photographic shoot.