 Camera World was founded in Portland in 1977 by Chung Doo "Jack" Shin (often identified as J. D. Shin), a Korean-American who had emigrated to the U.S. from South Korea in 1973 and moved from New York to Portland in 1976.The business was originally a single store, located in the ground floor of the Swetland Building, at SW 5th and Washington in downtown Portland.It never opened any additional stores, but expanded into mail-order sales and, later, Internet sales.