Have you ever considered ordering a camera via mail order? Ever looked at those ads in the back of photography magazines and gawked at the amazing deals? I think it’s fairly common knowledge that many of those advertisers are a little less than honest. They may try to sell you hundreds of dollars of unnecessary accessories, they might send you grey market goods or maybe they’ll just tell you that what you want is out of stock for the next three months. Nevertheless, I always wonder about these places. Are they just run by some guy sitting in his basement or what?

Don Wiss has helped to shed some light on what these places are, or at least what their "storefronts" look like. He has a bunch of photos of the various Brooklyn and Manhattan mail order photography companies’ physical locations. It’s quite an eye opener for anyone who has ever considred buying from one of them.