Since I was able to recognise the sensation as unusual, I have been subject to something which I much later discovered as ‘grapheme-synaesthesia’. Synaethesia is a neurological trait, whereby one sense automatically triggered another involuntary reaction. Grapheme Synaesthesia means that an individual associates colours specifically with letters or numbers, for example the days of the week for me, all have a specific colour associated with them I.e Monday - red, Tuesday - green, Wednesday - air force blue, Thursday - brown, Friday, dark blue, Saturday - pale yellow, Sunday - pale gold.
A similar effect occurs with numbers and dates, so as the new year approached, I felt that 2026 would be a bright pillar box red. 2025 by comparison has been a warm chocolate brown, like cocoa powder. Consequently, my recent choices of photographic filter have leaned distinctly into the red, with an emphasis on a phone app called Fimo, using a specific film simulation called X-Red. This emulates the classic Kodak Aerochrome film rather well, resulting in blue skies and scarlet foliage.
For the turn of the year, we spent three days in a converted Anderson shelter in a village just outside Shrewsbury, called Wroxeter. A tiny village, consisting of a church, a clutch of houses and cottages and just outside, the remains of a Roman city.
As it was such a quiet village, I was able to take the opportunity to wander the lanes after dark, to take some atmospheric photos of the old church and graveyard and some of the surrounding houses, lit up for Christmas and waiting for New Year’s Eve to arrive.
Perching the camera on the wall of the church in almost complete darkness was problematic and the device actually shifted during a long exposure, giving a sort of intentional camera movement effect in some shots.
Earlier in the day, walking around the delightfully historic city of Shrewsbury once more, I used the Fimo app to capture some shots around town.
