 Neil McCormick of The Daily Telegraph deemed the track "soulful balladry" and felt it showcased that Sheeran "can slip smoothly through the gears" on the album. Lipshutz described his singing as being "restrained" over "hesitant" acoustic guitar strum before the "arena drums kick in". Paul Cantor of Vibe picked "Photograph" as one of the standouts from the album, and noted that the song's "brooding arrangement is an emotional roller coaster". Kitty Empire of The Observer called "Photograph" a "swelling ballad", and suggested that Sheeran's writing was "particularly calculated". In his review for MusicOMH, John Murphy also felt that "Photograph" was "calculated and a bit cynical, almost as if it's been written specifically as a soundtrack to a particularly emotional scene in a US television series".
