Add to the Archive

What would be lost if your photograph didn’t exist?

Don’t send us your best photograph. Send us the photograph that would be hardest to replace.

A capture is something that would otherwise go unrecorded. It might be beautiful. It might be ordinary. It might be technically imperfect. What matters is what the photograph holds.

Maybe it is a person whose story would disappear with them. A place that is changing. A moment nobody thought to document. A small act of kindness. A way of life that is fading. A moment of injustice. A piece of your family’s history.

Tell us why the photograph matters. Only you can.

What we’re looking for

We aren’t looking for the most technically accomplished photograph. We’re looking for photographs that make us stop and ask: what would we not know, remember, or understand if this photograph didn’t exist?

Your explanation matters as much as the image. Tell us what you see in the photograph that someone else might miss. Keep it to 200 words or fewer.

We don’t publish everything. If we don’t run yours, we’ll tell you why.

Before you submit

You must have the right to submit the photograph. You keep everything. You’re giving Captured Shot permission to display it here with your name on it.

Submit a photograph. Tell us why it matters. Maybe it belongs in the archive.

  • The contact name and email above are private, so we can reach you if we have a question or if we don't run your submission. They won't appear on the site. Your name appears further down, and that's the one that gets credited under the photograph.

  • The photograph itself. One image, JPG or PNG.
  • A short, plain title. This becomes the headline on the capture's page.

  • Choose the category that fits your capture. Read these first, then select below.

    Power & Politics
    Protest, governance, justice, who decides and who doesn't. The exercise of power, and the refusal of it.

    Work & Money
    Labor, trades, wages, cost of living. What people do to get by, and what it costs them.

    Family & Community
    The bonds people live inside. Households, neighbourhoods, elders, the people who show up.

    Home & Habitat
    Housing, streets, infrastructure, land, weather. The places people live and what's happening to them.

    Faith & Culture
    Belief, ritual, music, craft, tradition. What gets passed down, and what's at risk of not being.

    Migration & Movement
    Arriving, leaving, being displaced, being stopped. The act of going somewhere else, willingly or not.

    Kindness & Care
    What people do for each other without being asked. Generosity, tending, small acts nobody recorded.

  • Tell us what would be lost if this frame did not exist. Two hundred words or fewer.
  • As the name should appear under the photograph.
  • Add two or three words.
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