A photographer is not an unfamiliar person who takes a photograph using a camera. A professional photographer uses photography to make a livelihood. The work of a photographer may be limited to the actual shooting of the camera, or it might include all of the steps in the development of the image up to the presentation of the final product. A photograph could either be the work of a single person or of a team formed of a photographer and a laboratory technician. The laboratory work, namely photographic processing, image processing, plus other less common techniques can completely change the appearance of a shot. Post-processing can be an art form in itself, but, the person who takes the shot is often more likely to be considered the artist, and the developer an artisan.

Photographers are often grouped into various categories depending on the subjects they photograph. Some photographers explore subjects typical of paintings such as landscape, still life, and portraiture. Other photographers specialize in subjects unique to photography, including street photography, documentary photography, fashion photography, wedding photography and commercial photography. The distinction between artistic photography and photojournalism or other types of photography and the associated techniques does not remove this personal aspect from the work of the great photographers

Photography is the process of recording pictures by means of capturing light on a light-sensitive medium, such as a film or electronic sensor. Light patterns reflected or emitted from objects expose a sensitive silver halide based chemical or electronic medium during a timed exposure, usually through a photographic lens in a device known as a camera that also stores the resulting information chemically or electronically.

The word "photography" comes from the French ‘photographie’ which is based on the Greek words phos ("light"), and graphis ("stylus", "paintbrush") or graphê ("representation by means of lines" or "drawing"), together meaning "drawing with light." Traditionally, the product of photography has been called a photograph, commonly known as photo.

Photographic cameras

The camera or camera obscura is the image-forming device, and photographic film or a silicon electronic image sensor is the sensing medium. The respective recording medium can be the film itself, or a digital electronic or magnetic memory.

Photographers control the camera and lens to "expose" the light recording material (such as film) to the required amount of light to form a latent image (on film) or "raw file" (in digital cameras) which, after appropriate processing, is converted to a usable image. Modern digital cameras replace film with an electronic image sensor based on light-sensitive electronics such as charge-couple device (CCD) or complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) technology. The resulting digital image is stored electronically, but can be reproduced on paper or film.