Midsummer: The Unseen Architecture

3:45am alarm. Out the door by 4:10am. On a Sunday morning.

I was chasing the midsummer sunrise.

The morning delivered exactly what it promised: a clear sky, blinding dawn light, and a magnificent shift in colour that I caught on camera. I have the timestamped photos to prove it.

But the lens only captures the surface.

What remains entirely unrecorded was the sound. The air wasn't peaceful. It was vibrating with a deafening wall of noise from the morning insects.

Because of my aphantasia, the visual memory faded almost immediately. But the sensation didn't. Synesthesia translated that chorus into weight, texture and physical feeling, leaving an imprint that will stay with me far longer than any photograph.

The camera captured the colour.

The rest stayed behind the image.