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

EpisodiNordics

Illalla tv:ssä: Vuoden 2014 fantasia kokosi huippunimet Russell Crowesta Will Smithiin – Martin Scorsese piti leffaa mahdottomana tehdä

10.25

Romanttinen fantasiaelokuva Talvinen tarina (Winter’s Tale, 2014) on katsottavissa illalla televisiosta.

Read at Episodi ↗

One letter a week, starting soon.

Latest

Illalla tv:ssä: Vuoden 2014 fantasia kokosi huippunimet Russell Crowesta Will Smithiin – Martin Scorsese piti leffaa mahdottomana tehdä

More from Episodi on Hot Shoe

NordicsIllan toimintakomedian arvio tyrmäsi: ”Nyt ei naurata kunnolla kertaakaan” – yleisö antoi silti lukeman 96 Episodi

NordicsIllan kauhuelokuva nostaa sykkeen kattoon – sijoittui kahdeksanneksi vuoden 2026 pelottavuusvertailussa Episodi

NordicsPäivän Suomi-komedia sai kriitikoilta ristiriitaisen vastaanoton – nousi silti vuoden 1995 toiseksi katsotuimmaksi Episodi

NordicsTänään tv:ssä: Vuoden 1974 western-komedia naurattaa edelleen, mutta sisältövaroitus on paikallaan Episodi

NordicsTänään tv:ssä: Vuoden 1980 kotimainen elokuva sensuroitiin vuosiksi – Kati Outisen repliikki oli tarkastajille liikaa Episodi

NordicsYksi 2010-luvun ylistetyimmistä eroottisista trillereistä poistuu HBO Maxista – Rotten Tomatoes -luku 96! Episodi