Montreal - Spirit of the City
Explore a professional gallery of Montreal street photography by James Rae. Featuring archival limited-edition prints and analogue colour photos of Montreal's urban life from 1970 to the present.
The soul of the city lies in obscurity, in places one doesn’t think to look. Not to be found in times and places, but present only in spirit. It is what the city chooses to reveal, to be glimpsed only momentarily. We move through space, mark time and make place. Then the moments come.
This is my Montreal, in a selection of images both analogue and colour. I am interested in people, places and times. Most interesting of all is how these intersect and endure once a shutter is released to fix the moment mechanically. Paradoxically, that photo is not a mechanical object that results, but a layered moment, layered with feeling perhaps, or an insight or question. Out of this exploration, a portrait of the city emerges, as it was lived and prevails.
Montreal images from the first time I picked up a camera in 1970 and the world exploded up to the present. Archival views and personal observations. I lived in Montreal for over four decades - on my constant quest.
oy in goalie mask cheering in a parking lot, March 1979
Vintage analogue photo of the iconic Kondiaronk Belvedere under dark clouds.
Vintage ice delivery truck on Sherbrooke Street, Montreal, 1975 analogue photography.
Children playing in the concrete yard of a Plateau Montreal triplex in June 1983
Boy Tying Up Girl, a playful street moment, Montreal, 1974
Children playing in an Outremont alley, with a young boy making emergency repairs to his toy car in 1983.
Two girls in the Senhor Santo Cristo dos Milagres religious procession, one walking very piously, and the other waving with a smile, a vintage analogue photo in Montreal, May 1981.