As many of you know, when I was a kid I lived in Montreal. There were no less than four major department stores downtown back then (don't know how many there are now, but I know that in Toronto there's only one of the old stores left). It was always a treat to be brought downtown by my father during the Christmas season. We always had to walk by all four stores, to look at the Christmas windows. Morgan's was at one end of the shopping area of St. Catherine's Street (the main drag), and we always started there and walked west to finish at Ogilvy's. Ogilvy's had to be last, because they always had the best windows. They alternated annually between two completely different animated woodland scenes.
Sometimes the crowd was three or four thick in front of Ogilvy's window - people stood there forever, just watching. My dad would always exhort me to push my way to the front; being a kid had some privileges, I guess. He'd wait patiently at the back of the crowd for me, never once telling me to hurry or that it was time to go. I think he enjoyed it as much as me. As I said, Toronto has one grand old department store left: it was once Robert Simpson's, now it's the flagship store for the Bay (Hudson's Bay Company). I saw this mother and daughter enjoying one of their windows, and the memories came flooding back: http://knarfinthecity.blogspot.com/2009/12/christmas-window.html I would have liked to taken a few more than this one, but the fur protesters caught my attention, and the one I took of them was the last of the roll. Leica CL, Summicron C 40mm, Ilford HP5+ Hope you enjoy. Comments always welcome. cheers, frank -- "Sharpness is a bourgeois concept." -Henri Cartier-Bresson -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
