Candid Cameras
The First Leica Store in the City

You’ve got a complex relationship with photos.

You’ve been moved by them. Aroused. Taken great pains to conceal them on your various mobile devices. Vehemently denied their legitimacy to the press.

But mostly, you’re in favor of them.

So behold the Leica Store SoHo, a sleek new den of legendary German camera stuff, now open.

You may not even know that you know Leica, but you do. That sailor kissing the woman on V-J Day: shot with a Leica. That Che Guevara snap on all those T-shirts: that, too. So this place has their wares—cameras, telescopes, binoculars—for you, the aspiring lensman (or the aspiring to impress/date a lensman).

It’s their first store in New York. And it’s... immaculate. A cross between an art gallery and Patrick Bateman’s living room. Leather couches and a rotating photo exhibit in the back, and stark red-and-black display cases up front.

A random sampling of what’s on display: a titanium M9-P designed with Hermès, an X2 by Paul Smith, 35 mm M3s from the ’50s and some mighty handsome bags from the British camera-carrying gods at Billingham.

And since there’s a good chance you don’t know what the hell an M9-P even is, they’re doing classes—walking tours, beginners’ lessons and street-photography courses.

Because Terry Richardson shouldn’t get to have all the fun.