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

Digital Photo MentorSoftware

What is Quality of Light in Photography and How to Use it to Take Better Photos

06.06

Why do some photos feel alive and others fall flat? It comes down to one variable most photographers misread: the apparent size of your light source. See it, and you'll shoot better in any light.

Photographers Photography Tips Beginner Photography Tutorials amateur photographer Beginner Photographer

Read at Digital Photo Mentor ↗

One letter a week, starting soon.

Latest

What is Quality of Light in Photography and How to Use it to Take Better Photos

Related

ReviewsAstrophotographer captures breathtaking view of 548 galaxies from a balcony Space.com astrophotography

ReviewsAstrophotographer spends 115 hours capturing Horsehead Nebula in striking detail with backyard telescope Space.com astrophotography

CultureWinner Announced: Nikon Emerging Photographer Award 2026 Photo London

AudioInterview: Simon James French of Kyoto, in Sound Creative Field Recording

ReviewsI thought my backyard had too much light pollution for astrophotography. The Vaonis Vespera Pro proved me wrong Space.com astrophotography

ReviewsAstrophotographer captures remarkable view of galactic 'Eyes' with backyard telescope Space.com astrophotography