About The Shoot Guide
A small independent editorial desk writing plainly about how photographs are actually made — starting with the light that is already in the room.
Why this site exists
There is a particular plateau that most people reach a year or two into photography. The camera works, the pictures are in focus, and they are still somehow ordinary. Almost every guide available at that point is either an equipment review or an inspirational gallery, and neither answers the actual question, which is: what should I be looking at before I press the shutter?
The Shoot Guide publishes the answer to that question in ordinary English. We write about direction and quality of light, about where a subject sits in a frame and why, about what focal length does to a face, about which exposure setting to surrender when the light runs out, and about the unglamorous file habits that decide whether you can still find a photograph a year after you made it.
Who this is written for
Advancing beginners. We assume you own a camera with manual controls and have used them at least occasionally, that you know roughly what aperture and shutter speed do, and that you are more interested in making a better picture than in buying a better lens. We do not assume a studio, a budget, an assistant or anything beyond a window and a piece of white card.
How we write
- Plain language first. Technical terms are defined the first time they appear. Where an ordinary word will do, we use the ordinary word.
- Seeing before settings. Most photographic problems are problems of observation, not of configuration. We put the looking first and the dials second.
- Craft over equipment. We are far more interested in what a decision does to a frame than in which company manufactured the device you made it with.
- Honest limits. Where something depends on your camera, your room, your subject or the weather, we say so rather than promising a result.
- General information. Our articles are educational. They are not personalised technical advice for your particular shoot, and they are not a substitute for testing with your own equipment.
What we do not do
We do not run paid placements dressed up as editorial. We do not publish invented statistics, fabricated testimonials or unverifiable superlatives. We do not sell anything, we carry no affiliate links, and we make no claims about what our writing will do for anyone's career or income. If an article ever involves a commercial relationship of any kind, that fact will appear in plain sight at the top of the page.
About the photographs
The images used across this site are licensed stock photographs, chosen to illustrate the point being made in the text. They are not the work of the author and they are not presented as such. Sources and licence terms are recorded in the source of each page on which a photograph appears.
Corrections
If we have got something wrong, we would rather know. Send us the passage and, where you can, a source. Verified corrections are made to the article itself rather than tucked into a footnote, so that the person reading it next month gets the right version.
Get in touch
The Shoot Guide is published by 316 Strategy Group from Omaha, Nebraska. Questions, corrections and suggestions for future guides are genuinely welcome. Write to team@theshootguide.com, call +1 (402) 616-8277, or use the details on our contact page.