I found these two pictures as I was going through some old slides yesterday. Slide film, for the uninitiated, was positive, not negative like print film, and you projected the image onto a screen.

I took lot of slides when I started in photography. Black and white film i processed and printed at home, but color was expensive and finicky. Slides were cheaper than paper prints. Being on a limited budget, slides were my medium of choice.

I did notice a projector in the basement yesterday, but haven’t checked to see it it works. It was my grandmother’s, probably purchased sometime in the 1950s. I have her slides too, several thousands of them. I should just toss them, but I know emotionally I can’t do that without looking at them. That’s a project for a rainy day.

This particular box of slides was shot in 1974, mostly at a colleague’s wedding. I have not seen her since 1975, and a Google search doesn’t turn her up. Not surprising since I can’t remember her married name.

The non-wedding shots were taken in Montreal, including the two in today’s post. I don’t know what prompted me to take a picture of this ruined building. I don’t remember exactly where it was in downtown Montreal or what I was doing that day.

What intrigued me most about the photo was the Simpson’s building in the background. Simpson’s was a major Canadian department store, started in 1858. By 1974 they had dropped the apostrophe in Quebec, and shortly after that they would drop the ‘s’ on the end to make it more French sounding.

As the US had Macy’s and Gimbel’s back then, Canada has Simpson’s and Eaton’s. Both ruled retail for more than a century. Both are now just names in the history books, victims of changing consumer attitudes.

I haven’t looked at these photos for almost 50 years. The smart thing to do would be to toss them all in the garbage without looking at any of them. Why would I ant to keep wedding pictures from people i no longer know? (And this week I did indeed toss out print photos of a wedding from the late 1970s.)

Somehow I don’t think I am going to be able to do that. There are a lot of memories locked in those boxes of slides. I don’t need to have them triggered – but I think it would be a lot of fun.

I’m sure many of the people will be just faces, I won’t remember the names. But the ones I remember will make the task worthwhile.

So I’m putting the slides aside. Maybe on a cold winter night I’ll haul out my grandmother’s projector and see if I can get it to work.

And if I find anything interesting, I’ll let you know.