Intern, Photography

Internship Program Overview:

The San Francisco 49ers offer full-time, paid internships for individuals interested in gaining hands-on experience in professional sports while exploring careers within the National Football League. Our program is designed to allows participants to contribute directly to the organization’s success while applying the knowledge learned in the classroom.

Interns are embedded within a specific department while also having opportunities to explore the broader organization through group networking events, training sessions, and one-on-one meetings with leaders across the club. Each intern is supported by a mentor and team and contributes to a project that builds skills and professional confidence.

At the 49ers, we value collaboration, adaptability, integrity, and strong communication. We’re committed to creating a supportive environment where interns can learn, share ideas, and grow. Our goal is to deliver a positive, impactful experience that inspires “fans for life” and prepares interns for future success in sports and beyond.

General Internship details and expectations:

• Our interns are paid $19.00 per hour and are expected to work 30-40 hours or more per week during the internship period. 
• Interns are expected to commit to the full term of the internship and be mostly onsite (no remote internships are available), which runs from mid-July through the end of February. 
• Interns are expected to work flexible hours that include nights, holidays, and weekends. 
• Interns to provide their own housing and transportation

Important dates: 

• Monday, January 5, 2026 - Applications close 
• Monday, July 6, 2026 - First day of the internship program
• Friday, February 26, 2027 - Last day of the internship program

In this position as photography intern, you will be responsible for creating unique and relevant content that will be impactful through storytelling and powerful imagery for the San Francisco 49ers organization. The intern photographer will collaborate with digital content, video production, and creative design teams to deliver on-brand content to live on multiple platforms. The photography intern should have passion for the art of photography and be proficient in their ability of post-processing images.

The intern photographer will also photograph and edit photos for San Francisco 49ers on gamedays, training camp, practices, as well as community, foundations, marketing, and partnerships events, as well as other daily requests as required for the San Francisco 49ers and Levi’s Stadium stakeholders.

In addition, the intern photographer will also be responsible for learning and assist managing and maintaining our in-house digital asset management system via Photoshelter or similar platform for searchability of photos by key stakeholders across the organization. You will be working very closely with all the marketing creative teams on new photo concepts to develop new content strategies. 

Responsibilities and Duties: 

• Assists with photographing the gameday experience (stadium, arrivals, fans, pregame, in-game, postgame), and supports timely image delivery for use by creative and digital teams.
• Supports the photography team by capturing assigned events, games, and behind the scenes on gamedays.
• Works with digital on a weekly basis to produce photo galleries for 49ers.com.
• Captures images that support brand storytelling.
• Stay up to date on all digital, photography, creative trends, and technology.
• Assists with editing and logging photos promptly after each game with an eye for high quality images.
• Assists with researching tools and workflow improvements and shares recommendations with team.
• Assists with organizing and metadata tagging images using Caption Pro and uploading to Photoshelter.
• Ability to edit and produce a quality selection of images efficiently.
• Supports team efforts to maintain that all photography imagery is best-in-class to produce a high performing content output
• Collaborates with creative team on branding campaigns and in season micro campaign themes i.e., Crucial Catch, MCMC, new uniform/gear launches.
• Upload and archive photos to our Photolibrary server.
• Assists content reviews and contributes new ideas with the Digital team to strategically reach and influence more fans.
• Other duties as assigned.

Abilities and Skills:

• Must have knowledgeable background in photography.
• Previous experience utilizing our online Photoshelter digital asset management services.
• Must have experience in still photography and knowledgeable in post processing skills.
• Proficient in PhotoMechanic, Adobe Photoshop/Lightroom and Mac OS systems.
• Must understand the importance of metadata tagging when searching for photo assets.
• Able to communicate confidently and competently to all types of audiences within a variety of delivery methods.
• Organizational skills with the ability to manage time effectively, while balancing and prioritizing multiple or competing tasks.
• Knowledge understanding on how to use “on” and “off’ camera flash devices.
• Seek visual inspiration to create images independently.
• Must be a team player, and willing to receive feedback and open to new photography concepts.  
• Understanding of the NFL: Football rules, pace of game, players, coaches and management.
• Must have excellent interpersonal and customer service skills.

Education and Experience:

• Relevant work experience; or an equivalent combination of education and experience.
• Extremely proficient and knowledgeable with Canon photography gear/equipment preferred
• Experience with Digital Asset Management – Photoshelter. 
• Experience using Adobe Creative Suite (Photoshop, Lightroom).
• Experience with Microsoft Suite including Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint & Word
• Proficient Photo Mechanic and other photo editing software tools

Physical Demands and Work Environment:

The physical demands described here are representative of those that must be met by an employee to successfully perform the essential functions of this position. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the functions. 

The employee will be in an indoor/outdoor facility much of the time and may be exposed to outdoor weather conditions. 

The employee is frequently required to sit, use hands or fingers, handle or feel objects, tools, or controls and reach with hands and arms. The employee is regularly required to talk or hear. The employee is occasionally required to stand, walk and lift and/or move up to 50 pounds. The employee is frequently required to stoop, kneel, crouch, and crawl. Specific vision abilities required by this position include close vision, distance vision, color vision, and the ability to adjust focus.

This position requires the ability to work extended hours, weekends and holidays.

Travel:

25% of local travel time expected for this position.

This role does not typically travel with the team to road games/events but may include travel pending availability.