Our history began with the opening of Eddie Black’s appliance store on the corner of Yonge Street and St. Clair Avenue in Toronto, in 1930. Eddie’s sons Robert and Williams joined the business in 1946 and renamed it “Eddie Black’s Camera Store,” marking the true beginning of one of Canada’s greatest retail success stories. The timing was right and the economic boom following World War II helped Black’s Camera Store expand to 200 stores across Canada. By 1969, the company went public on the Toronto Stock Exchange and became widely recognized as an innovative force in the industry. They pioneered amongst other things the 4x6 photo printing format.

Blacks™ remained public until the family sold its business to Scott’s Hospitality Inc. in 1985. The emergence of the digital camera market and the constantly growing competition lead the Black family to this tough decision. The company became then owned by Fujifilm from 1993 to 2007 and got bought back by Telus Canada, who used the stores as sales points for their camera-enabled smartphones. The advent of smartphones was just the tip of the iceberg of a worldwide digital shift that changed the way Canadians take and print photos which forced Telus to close all remaining Blacks™ stores in 2015.

It wasn’t the end of Blacks™, though. Not in the least! Canadian-based company Les Pros de la Photo acquired the brand and decided to assure the future prosperity of Blacks™ as an online photo printing service! Blacks™.ca has since then become Canada’s leading online photo printing service, delivering millions of printed memories to its customers across the country.

Thank YOU for shopping at Blacks.ca, one of Canada’s proudest retail brands since 1930!