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

Amateur PhotographerReviews

This massive street photography exhibition celebrates urban life around the world – make sure you save the date!

10.26

Winners of our Community of the Year award at the 2026 AP Awards, Urban Photographers Club, have announced their next exhibition : URBAN LIVES.

Exhibitions & books Photographers

Read at Amateur Photographer ↗

One letter a week, starting soon.

Latest

This massive street photography exhibition celebrates urban life around the world – make sure you save the date!

Related

CinemaExclusive Interview With Anders Narverud Moen, About The 30th Fredrikstad Animation Festival Cinema Daily US

VFXLondon’s Design Museum hosts behind the scenes exhibit on Laika’s Wildwood Animated Views

ReviewsWinners of 17th Epson International Pano Awards announced Photo Review

IndiaNature’s Beauty and Heartbreak: 19 Powerful Award-Winning Photos From Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2026 121clicks

CultureThe Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2026 Winners Showcase Nature’s Power and Vulnerability Colossal Photography

ReviewsYoung Railway Photographer of the Year: Entries now open Macfilos