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Photographer deserts: where America has the fewest photographers per capita

Photography businesses per 100,000 residents for every US county, metro area and state: studios with payroll plus self-employed photographers, as counted by the U.S. Census Bureau. The US rate is 76.2.

Bronx vs Manhattan · 50 counties over 1M

Bronx (lowest)32.6vsManhattan (highest)167.1per 100k

The Bronx is at 0.4× the US rate of 76.2; Manhattan is at 2.2×.

The Bronx is the lowest of the 50 US counties over 1 million residents and Manhattan the highest. The Bronx has 12 studios with staff and 446 self-employed photographers for 1,406,052 people.

Lowest of 292 counties over 250k (published counts)

Merced County, CA32.3per 100k

0.4× the US rate of 76.2.

96 self-employed photography businesses and fewer than 3 studios with staff for 296,807 people. Census doesn’t publish counts under 3, so if Merced has 1–2 studios with staff its rate is up to 33.0: effectively tied with the Bronx.

Lowest and highest of 55 metros over 1M

Fresno (lowest)46.8vsNashville (highest)115.7per 100k

Fresno is at 0.6× the US rate of 76.2; Nashville is at 1.5×.

Nashville has 2.5× as many photography businesses per resident as Fresno.

Lowest and highest of 50 states and DC

Mississippi (lowest)49.4vsMontana (highest)124.0per 100k

Mississippi is at 0.6× the US rate of 76.2; Montana is at 1.6×.

Mississippi has 38 photography studios with staff statewide.

Self-employed share, US

94%

of the 258,975 US photography businesses have no employees: 243,502 self-employed businesses vs 15,473 studios with payroll.

Look up your countyDownload the dataPhoto Intelligence Lab

Data: U.S. Census Bureau CBP 2023, NES 2024, PopEst 2024 · CC BY 4.0

By state

Mississippi has the fewest photography businesses per resident; Montana the most

Tile map of photography businesses per 100,000 residents by state

Mississippi: 49.4 photography businesses per 100k residents (rank 1 of 51, lowest first)MS49West Virginia: 53.5 photography businesses per 100k residents (rank 2 of 51, lowest first)WV53New Mexico: 55.1 photography businesses per 100k residents (rank 3 of 51, lowest first)NM55Kentucky: 56.9 photography businesses per 100k residents (rank 4 of 51, lowest first)KY57Arkansas: 59.9 photography businesses per 100k residents (rank 5 of 51, lowest first)AR60Delaware: 61.2 photography businesses per 100k residents (rank 6 of 51, lowest first)DE61Alabama: 61.5 photography businesses per 100k residents (rank 7 of 51, lowest first)AL62Indiana: 64.0 photography businesses per 100k residents (rank 8 of 51, lowest first)IN64Pennsylvania: 65.8 photography businesses per 100k residents (rank 9 of 51, lowest first)PA66Arizona: 65.8 photography businesses per 100k residents (rank 10 of 51, lowest first)AZ66Louisiana: 65.8 photography businesses per 100k residents (rank 11 of 51, lowest first)LA66Oklahoma: 67.1 photography businesses per 100k residents (rank 12 of 51, lowest first)OK67Illinois: 67.8 photography businesses per 100k residents (rank 13 of 51, lowest first)IL68Ohio: 69.7 photography businesses per 100k residents (rank 14 of 51, lowest first)OH70Texas: 70.9 photography businesses per 100k residents (rank 15 of 51, lowest first)TX71New Jersey: 71.7 photography businesses per 100k residents (rank 16 of 51, lowest first)NJ72Kansas: 72.7 photography businesses per 100k residents (rank 17 of 51, lowest first)KS73North Carolina: 73.0 photography businesses per 100k residents (rank 18 of 51, lowest first)NC73Iowa: 73.1 photography businesses per 100k residents (rank 19 of 51, lowest first)IA73Connecticut: 73.2 photography businesses per 100k residents (rank 20 of 51, lowest first)CT73Virginia: 73.6 photography businesses per 100k residents (rank 21 of 51, lowest first)VA74Massachusetts: 74.0 photography businesses per 100k residents (rank 22 of 51, lowest first)MA74Nevada: 74.0 photography businesses per 100k residents (rank 23 of 51, lowest first)NV74Missouri: 74.7 photography businesses per 100k residents (rank 24 of 51, lowest first)MO75Michigan: 74.7 photography businesses per 100k residents (rank 25 of 51, lowest first)MI75Maryland: 75.2 photography businesses per 100k residents (rank 26 of 51, lowest first)MD75South Carolina: 76.7 photography businesses per 100k residents (rank 27 of 51, lowest first)SC77Nebraska: 77.7 photography businesses per 100k residents (rank 28 of 51, lowest first)NE78Wisconsin: 77.9 photography businesses per 100k residents (rank 29 of 51, lowest first)WI78Florida: 78.3 photography businesses per 100k residents (rank 30 of 51, lowest first)FL78Rhode Island: 79.3 photography businesses per 100k residents (rank 31 of 51, lowest first)RI79Tennessee: 79.8 photography businesses per 100k residents (rank 32 of 51, lowest first)TN80District of Columbia: 80.0 photography businesses per 100k residents (rank 33 of 51, lowest first)DC80California: 80.1 photography businesses per 100k residents (rank 34 of 51, lowest first)CA80Washington: 81.3 photography businesses per 100k residents (rank 35 of 51, lowest first)WA81North Dakota: 81.4 photography businesses per 100k residents (rank 36 of 51, lowest first)ND81Georgia: 81.7 photography businesses per 100k residents (rank 37 of 51, lowest first)GA82Alaska: 83.6 photography businesses per 100k residents (rank 38 of 51, lowest first)AK84New Hampshire: 86.6 photography businesses per 100k residents (rank 39 of 51, lowest first)NH87Minnesota: 87.0 photography businesses per 100k residents (rank 40 of 51, lowest first)MN87New York: 87.8 photography businesses per 100k residents (rank 41 of 51, lowest first)NY88Maine: 91.1 photography businesses per 100k residents (rank 42 of 51, lowest first)ME91Oregon: 93.5 photography businesses per 100k residents (rank 43 of 51, lowest first)OR93South Dakota: 95.9 photography businesses per 100k residents (rank 44 of 51, lowest first)SD96Idaho: 95.9 photography businesses per 100k residents (rank 45 of 51, lowest first)ID96Vermont: 97.0 photography businesses per 100k residents (rank 46 of 51, lowest first)VT97Wyoming: 108.4 photography businesses per 100k residents (rank 47 of 51, lowest first)WY108Colorado: 111.1 photography businesses per 100k residents (rank 48 of 51, lowest first)CO111Utah: 112.4 photography businesses per 100k residents (rank 49 of 51, lowest first)UT112Hawaii: 117.6 photography businesses per 100k residents (rank 50 of 51, lowest first)HI118Montana: 124.0 photography businesses per 100k residents (rank 51 of 51, lowest first)MT124

Photography businesses per 100k residents

  • Under 60
  • 60–70
  • 70–76.2
  • 76.2–90
  • 90–105
  • 105 and over

Warm tiles are below the US rate of 76.2 per 100k; cool tiles are above it. Each tile is one state, equal size, roughly in its geographic position.

Fewest per 100k

  1. Mississippi49.4
  2. West Virginia53.5
  3. New Mexico55.1
  4. Kentucky56.9
  5. Arkansas59.9

Most per 100k

  1. Montana124.0
  2. Hawaii117.6
  3. Utah112.4
  4. Colorado111.1
  5. Wyoming108.4

Explore the data

Every county, metro area and state

Type a county name, for example “Merced” or “Bronx”.

1,010 counties with 50k or more residents. Rank is lowest per 100k first, among 1,010 ranked counties in this size band; equal rates share a rank, marked “(tied)”.

Rank
1 McKinley County, NM68,631 people · <3 studios with staff · 11 self-employed16.0up to 18.9
2 Apache County, AZ64,695 people · <3 studios with staff · 12 self-employed18.6up to 21.6
3 Maverick County, TX58,580 people · <3 studios with staff · 12 self-employed20.5up to 23.9
4 Anderson County, TX59,573 people · <3 studios with staff · 15 self-employed25.2up to 28.5
5 Orangeburg County, SC83,171 people · <3 studios with staff · 23 self-employed27.6up to 30.1
6 Imperial County, CA182,771 people · 3 studios with staff · 48 self-employed27.9
7 Cumberland County, NJ156,407 people · 3 studios with staff · 42 self-employed28.8
8 Ashtabula County, OH96,748 people · <3 studios with staff · 28 self-employed28.9up to 31.0
9 Robeson County, NC119,400 people · <3 studios with staff · 35 self-employed29.3up to 31.0
10 San Patricio County, TX71,534 people · <3 studios with staff · 21 self-employed29.4up to 32.1
11 Sampson County, NC61,077 people · <3 studios with staff · 18 self-employed29.5up to 32.8
12 Chaves County, NM63,746 people · <3 studios with staff · 19 self-employed29.8up to 32.9
13 Highlands County, FL109,892 people · <3 studios with staff · 33 self-employed30.0up to 31.9
14 Nye County, NV56,361 people · <3 studios with staff · 17 self-employed30.2up to 33.7
15 Darlington County, SC62,683 people · <3 studios with staff · 20 self-employed31.9up to 35.1
16 Caldwell County, NC80,854 people · <3 studios with staff · 26 self-employed32.2up to 34.6
17 Christian County, KY71,436 people · <3 studios with staff · 23 self-employed32.2up to 35.0
18 Merced County, CA296,807 people · <3 studios with staff · 96 self-employed32.3up to 33.0
19 Pike County, KY55,358 people · <3 studios with staff · 18 self-employed32.5up to 36.1
20 Bronx County, NY1,406,052 people · 12 studios with staff · 446 self-employed32.6
21 Sumter County, FL154,261 people · <3 studios with staff · 51 self-employed33.1up to 34.4
22 Rockingham County, NC93,670 people · <3 studios with staff · 31 self-employed33.1up to 35.2
23 Bowie County, TX92,676 people · <3 studios with staff · 31 self-employed33.5up to 35.6
24 Bullitt County, KY85,765 people · <3 studios with staff · 29 self-employed33.8up to 36.1
25 Columbia County, FL73,721 people · <3 studios with staff · 25 self-employed33.9up to 36.6
1–25 of 1,010

<3 means Census did not publish the cell: both programs leave out any count under 3. Those cells count as 0 in the per-100k rate, so it is a lower bound; “up to” fills each unpublished cell at its maximum of 2. “None published” means fewer than 3 of each type; those counties are not ranked, because their rate is only known to lie between 0 and the upper bound.

S: the Nonemployer Statistics estimate did not meet Census publication standards (17 small counties). They are kept in the CSV and left out of rankings.

Metro and micro figures add up their counties, so county cells under 3 add 0 and metro totals are lower bounds. Businesses = photography studios with payroll (CBP 2023) plus self-employed photography businesses (NES 2024).

More findings

What else the counts show

  • Rural counties have a third fewer. Counties outside any metro or micro area have 52.7 photography businesses per 100k, vs 78.8 in metro counties.
  • Silicon Valley ranks near the bottom. The San Jose metro has 57.9 per 100k, third-lowest of the 55 metros with 1 million+ people.
  • 2,412 counties, home to 64.9 million people, have fewer than 3 photography studios with paid staff and rely on self-employed photographers.
  • 399 small counties (2,154,988 people) have no published count of either kind. That means fewer than 3 of each type, not zero: at most 4 in total.

Why it matters

Access to a photographer is uneven

Headshots for a job search, school and family portraits, ID and passport photos: most people need a photographer a few times a decade. Where few photography businesses are based, there is less choice, more travel, and often higher prices. These counts measure where businesses are registered, not how far anyone has to drive, so they show where supply is thin, not a hard boundary of access.

Methodology

How we counted, and what the numbers cannot say

What is counted

Photography businesses per 100,000 residents. Businesses are NAICS 54192 Photographic Services, counted two ways and added: employer establishments (with payroll) from County Business Patterns 2023, plus nonemployer businesses (self-employed, receipts of $1,000 or more) from Nonemployer Statistics 2024. Residents are Census Population Estimates, Vintage 2025, for July 1, 2024. Nonemployers are 94% of the 258,975 total, so employer counts alone would miss most photographers.

54192, not 541921

Nonemployer Statistics only publishes the 5-digit code 54192 (portrait plus commercial photography) for counties, metros and states. The 6-digit portrait-studio code 541921 exists only for employers, and is in the county CSV as a separate column. This study measures photography businesses, not headshot or portrait photographers specifically. Wedding and event shooters, and photographers who file under other codes or work inside other businesses, can be miscounted either way.

Self-employed includes part-timers

Anyone filing as a business with no payroll and at least $1,000 in receipts counts, including side gigs. The count is of businesses, not full-time photographers.

Fewer than 3 is not published

Both Census programs drop any county cell with fewer than 3 businesses. An absent cell is counted as 0 in the rate, which makes it a lower bound; the CSV’s upper-bound column adds 2 for each absent cell. The explorer shows these cells as “<3”, never as 0. 17 small counties flagged “S” by NES 2024 are left out of rankings.

Years and geography

CBP 2023 is the latest published year. A fully matched 2023 run (CBP, NES and population all 2023) ranks counties almost the same (Spearman 0.85), and the headline rankings hold. NES assigns businesses by the owner’s mailing address, so a low county next to a high one (the Bronx and Manhattan) partly reflects where photographers live, not only where they work.

McKinley and Apache counties

The lowest counties with 50,000+ residents are McKinley County, NM (Gallup) and Apache County, AZ. Both cover large parts of the Navajo Nation, where IRS-based counts can miss informal or tribal-jurisdiction businesses. Treat their rank with care and verify locally.

Sources

Official Census bulk files, which hold the same published values as the Census Data API: County Business Patterns 2023 (county file cbp23co), Nonemployer Statistics 2024 (county and state files nonemp24co, nonemp24st), and Population Estimates Vintage 2025 (county and CBSA totals). Metro areas use the 2023 OMB delineation and are sums of their counties. BLS OEWS May 2025 photographer employment is joined into the metro CSV as a cross-check. No Narkis data is used in any number.

Data and citation

Use the data

How to cite (APA)

Narkis. (2026, October 26). Photographer deserts: where America has the fewest photographers per capita [Data set]. Photo Intelligence Lab by Narkis. https://narkis.ai/research/photographer-deserts

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