Blacks Photography, stylized as BLACK^S (formerly Black's), is a

Canadian Canadians () are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of their being ''C ...

online retailer of photo prints and personalized photo products, home decor items, and photofinishing services. It is headquartered in

Montreal Montreal is the List of towns in Quebec, largest city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Quebec, the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-largest in Canada, and the List of North American cit ...

Quebec Quebec is Canada's List of Canadian provinces and territories by area, largest province by area. Located in Central Canada, the province shares borders with the provinces of Ontario to the west, Newfoundland and Labrador to the northeast, ...

, Canada. Prior to 2015, Blacks was a brick and mortar retail chain focusing on photography equipment and processing since 1939. However, due to declining business in part to the rise of

digital photography Digital photography uses cameras containing arrays of electronic photodetectors interfaced to an analog-to-digital converter (ADC) to produce images focused by a lens, as opposed to an exposure on photographic film. The digitized image is ...

and

camera phone A camera phone is a mobile phone that is able to capture photographs and often record video using one or more built-in digital cameras. It can also send the resulting image wirelessly and conveniently. The first commercial phone with a color c ...

s, the chain closed on August 4, 2015. Blacks' domain and app assets were sold to Montreal-based '' Les Pros de la Photo'', Canada's largest wholesale photofinisher, which has taken over and operates it as an online business.

History

Blacks was founded in 1930 by Eddie Black, selling home appliances and electronics. However in 1939, with the first Royal visit to Canada being planned, Black anticipated that cameras and related items would be in high demand for the event, which turned out to be correct, so photography become the focus of Black's business. In 1948, Eddie's sons William Edward Black (1925-2010) and Robert (Bob) Black opened

Toronto Toronto ( , locally pronounced or ) is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, most populous city in Canada. It is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Ontario. With a p ...

's first specialty camera store on St. Clair Ave, known as "Eddie Black's Cameras". The family owned firm became a public company in 1969 and was listed on

Toronto Stock Exchange The Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX; ) is a stock exchange located in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is the List of stock exchanges, 10th largest exchange in the world and the third largest in North America based on market capitalization. Based in th ...

and later sold to Scott's Hospitality Inc in 1985. In 1993,

Fujifilm , trading as , or simply Fuji, is a Japanese Multinational corporation, multinational Conglomerate (company), conglomerate headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, operating in the areas of photography, optics, Office supplies, office and Biomedical engine ...

bought the company and its 210 stores for $65 million. Blacks expanded into Western Canada and acquired 45 Kit's Camera stores in

British Columbia British Columbia is the westernmost Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada. Situated in the Pacific Northwest between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains, the province has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that ...

Alberta Alberta is a Provinces and territories of Canada, province in Canada. It is a part of Western Canada and is one of the three Canadian Prairies, prairie provinces. Alberta is bordered by British Columbia to its west, Saskatchewan to its east, t ...

, and

Saskatchewan Saskatchewan is a Provinces and territories of Canada, province in Western Canada. It is bordered on the west by Alberta, on the north by the Northwest Territories, on the east by Manitoba, to the northeast by Nunavut, and to the south by the ...

. In 1987, Blacks continued their expansion by acquiring the coincidentally-named Brown's Photo chain of the United States. The US stores were sold in 1991. Blacks acquired Astral Photo in 1996, formed in 1968 by Astral Media in

. The Quebec-based stores with locations in four provinces were ultimately renamed "Black's", but the last of the stores in Quebec were closed in 2013. Blacks currently does not have a presence in Quebec. On October 29, 2007, Reichmann Hauer Capital Partners (RHCP) purchased the company. The company and its 113 stores was then acquired from RHCP by Telus on September 8, 2009 for $28 million. In 2014, the company rebranded as "BLACK^S", in all caps, a superscripted s and without a

possessive apostrophe The apostrophe (, ) is a punctuation mark, and sometimes a diacritical mark, in languages that use the Latin alphabet and some other alphabets. In English, the apostrophe is used for two basic purposes: * The marking of the omission of one o ...

, following the lead of fellow Canadian companies such as

Eatons The T. Eaton Company Limited, later known as Eaton's, was a Canadian department store chain that was once the largest in the country. It was founded in 1869 in Toronto by Timothy Eaton, an immigrant from what is now Northern Ireland. Eaton's gr ...

and Tim Hortons. It also launched a new store concept based largely around prints and other creative solutions for digital photography.

Retail closure

On June 9, 2015, Blacks announced it was closing all of its stores on August 8, 2015. The company stated that "Despite the positive momentum and financial improvements our BLACKS team has delivered over the last year, we have been unable to realize profitable growth and it would take considerable investment to adapt BLACKS to ongoing change." A total of 485 employees were affected.

E-commerce

On June 14, 2015, Blacks announced that its online business (website and mobile app) had been acquired by Les Pros de la Photo, based in Montreal. As of August 4, 2015, the Blacks name and online photofinishing business operate under the new ownership.

References

External links

Blacks
{{Authority control Telus Consumer electronics retailers of Canada Photography companies of Canada Companies based in Scarborough, Ontario 1948 establishments in Ontario Retail companies established in 1948 Photographic retailers