The small bracket on top of every camera, from a phone rig to an ARRI.

The hot shoe is where the flash goes, and the microphone, and the monitor, and whatever the next decade bolts on. Every camera has one and nobody photographs it. This magazine is named after it because that is where the whole business meets: the body, the glass, the light, the sound, and the person holding it.

I shot news in Gothenburg for nine years and documentary for hire after that, then stopped taking assignments to write about the tools. Since 2021 I live in Tokyo, ten minutes from the used-camera shops of Shinjuku, which is not an accident: Canon, Nikon, Sony, Fujifilm, Panasonic, Ricoh and Sigma make almost everything worth pointing at a subject, and their own press writes about it first, in Japanese. So this magazine reads it there, and in German, French, Italian and Spanish, and in English from the reviewers who actually put a card in the slot — around eighty sources and thirty channels, counted and plotted so you can see what is moving.

Bodies and lenses, cinema cameras and drones, film and the darkroom, firmware and the software that finishes the picture, the rumours before the launch and the reviews after it, and the photographers and shows the rest of it is for. I test what I write about on a job before a word goes down. I shoot film on Sundays and do not think that makes me interesting.

A story here is a headline, a short excerpt, one picture and the link to whoever reported it. We never reprint the article, and the picture belongs to the photographer or the maker. A story written in Japanese appears in Japanese, as its author set it down; the link goes to the original.

— Mara Lindqvist, Tokyo

← Hot Shoe Archive

The PlaylistCinema

‘G.I. Joe’: Paramount Sets October 2028 Release For Danny McBride’s Reboot Starring Bradley Cooper

11.06

Paramount is officially planting its flag for the next “ G.I. Joe ” movie. The studio has set an October 20, 2028, theatrical release for its upcoming reboot, starring Bradley Cooper as Duke and…

Read at The Playlist ↗

One letter a week, starting soon.

Latest

‘G.I. Joe’: Paramount Sets October 2028 Release For Danny McBride’s Reboot Starring Bradley Cooper

More from The Playlist on Hot Shoe

CinemaSebastián Lelio Dies: Oscar-Winning ‘A Fantastic Woman’ & ‘The Wonder’ Filmmaker Was 52 The Playlist

CinemaGuitarricadelafuente on ‘La Bola Negra’: “I Would Cry Reading That Script” [Interview] The Playlist

Cinema‘Stuntnuts’: Chris Hemsworth, Sam Rockwell & Matt Damon To Star In Matthew Vaughn’s Next Movie, A Meta-Action Comedy About Stuntmen The Playlist

CinemaJoaquin Phoenix And Jonathan Glazer Finally Team Up… For An AI Eyewear Ad The Playlist

CinemaSylvester Stallone Says Steven Seagal Was “Begging” To Join ‘The Expendables,’ Despite Previously Saying He Turned It Down The Playlist

CinemaLionsgate Greenlights ‘John Wick’ Animated Prequel Film, Keanu Reeves To Reprise Signature Role The Playlist