A Trivial Question: Photoshoot or Photo Shoot?

I was writing up a blurb for the website today using the word(s) Photo Shoot. I wrote it out as one word then two but wasn’t sure which was correct. So I did what we do now – I looked it up on Google. Both are correct, but like most things photography-related, this word has changed form as well in the last decade. Specifically, the compound version of Photoshoot took off in 2013. Ten years earlier it was non-existent; it was two words Photo and Shoot. And for a very short while in between, the hyphenated version Photo-Shoot was popular.

As the world of photography transitioned to digital, the words that accompanied it transformed as well. No longer are words like Ektachrome, Tri-X, twin-lens reflex, Rodinal, Hypo, or push processing the language of photography. We have evolved into a new language filled with Megapixels, Raw Files, Full Frame CMOS Sensors, Compact Flash, Workflow, Image Processors, In-Camera Editing, and, of course, Photoshop.

So when you schedule a session in which you, the photographer, are going to take pictures of a person or a group, you can call it either a Photoshoot or a Photo Shoot. The choice is yours. Not quite as daunting as all the other choices you are faced with in the world of digital photography.