Everything was fine until cellphone cameras became better and popular.
Now, one of Canada’s oldest photography businesses is closing its doors. In early June, Blacks Photography announced it was closing all 59 stores after 58 years in business, including its three Alberta locations in Calgary.
A spokesperson for Blacks said the business was unable to remain profitable. It was feeling the effects of more and more consumers using their smartphones to take photos, instead of relying on traditional camera models.
Blacks is not the only business to feel the effect of cellphone cameras, said Rene Rodrigue, manager of McBain Camera in St. Albert. As more consumers use their phones to snap pictures, photography stores will have to adapt.
Rodrigue expects McBain will survive because they largely serve the professional photographers’ market and have a loyal and local customer base. But they also try and stay up to date with changes in the industry, he said.
“I think the reason we are doing well is because we have such goodwill in the community and we still have people that come in on a regular basis to shop with us,” he said. “Which we are really, really thankful for.”
Digital photography, especially sales for smaller, compact cameras, experienced a boom between 2001 and 2011. At one point, Rodrigue used to have 60 to 70 point-and-shoot cameras in stock at any time.
But as more people rely on their cellphone cameras, sales of smaller cameras are dropping. Now, he has less than 50 compact cameras in stock and his inventory continues to shrink, he said.
“Really it was the small, simple cameras that really took off,” he said. “Now that everyone has a small, simple camera in their pocket, being a cellphone, they don’t really need those cameras anymore.”
That doesn’t mean photography stores can’t make a profit, he said.
Digital single-lens reflex (DSLR) cameras with exchangeable lenses continue to gain in popularity among photography enthusiasts and professionals. While they don’t attract the same number of people as compact cameras, they do sell well, he said.
He added that McBain benefits from staying on top of technological changes.
They now carry camera accessories and hardware geared at cellphone users. People can also get prints by submitting their photos online. And the store’s website is continuously updated to make sure it’s compatible with new cellphone operating systems, he said.
It can be difficult to keep up with the changes and you constantly have to pay attention, he said. “But when you do it right, it does pay off,” he said.
“It’s just one sector of photography that dropped off. It happened to a very significant sector of the market but everything else is doing well.”
