Seeing Red
On No Longer Loving My Favorite Color
It’s hard to imagine now, but there was a time when I often wore a red baseball hat. Not because I supported some dipshit president, but because I genuinely liked the color red. The hat advertised a snow-plow company where my uncle worked for years; having a guy on the inside meant I had access to the merch, I probably went through ten of those hats over the course of a decade.
Then said dipshit came along, became the most predictable failure in American politics, and managed to make me not only uncomfortable wearing my red hat, but changed how I feel about the color altogether. Red had been my favorite color for as long as I could remember. I felt its impact constantly, almost never subtle, always able to shift how I saw a photograph, clothing, anything really.
If you have young kids, you know the question of your favorite color comes up surprisingly often. I get asked at least once a month. And these days, my answer is always: “It used to be red, but now I don’t have one.”
I know it isn’t really the color that I dislike now—it’s the person I associate it with. But that association has rewired how my brain responds to it. The most obvious example is how I feel when I see a red hat, no matter what it says, but it goes beyond that. The chemical reaction in my brain is different now whenever I see the color. The magic is gone. I tried to hold on to it, to keep it from being ruined, but I failed. It’s gone, and unfortunately, no other color has taken its place.
In the past, when people asked what they should wear for a photo, I’d usually find a way to steer them toward red, sometimes without even realizing I was doing it.
I would also find myself photographing things without immediately knowing why I was drawn to them. I’d take the photo and only later realize I’d probably been pulled in by a small bit of red, something that stood out even more when the rest of the scene lacked color.
The reason I noticed the moment below was the way the stop sign glowed, lit by the headlights behind me, and how it echoed the glowing tail lights. It’s a perfect example of how even a small touch of color can have an impact.
Here are a few more examples of what I’m talking about. I’m not sure the color has the same effect on anyone else’s brain as it does on mine, but hopefully there’s something in the photos that resonates beyond just the color.
So the question now is: can I learn to love another color in the same way? Can I train myself to notice and respond to small flashes of it out in the world? Or better yet, can I relearn to love my original favorite? It’ll take time, and probably the fading of a certain person and his fans, but is it even possible, or is it ruined forever?
In the meantime, I’m open to suggestions for a new favorite color. My daughter has already cast her vote for green.
Here are a few photos that I love, for no particular reason, except, well, you know.
Thanks, Travis
While writing this post I was listening to:
🙌🏻 Red lover here. The dipshit president also ruined red hats for me. I try to keep in mind that the color is older than human life and is, in fact, at the core of human essence. It exists before, around, and after the dipshit. But green is a good alternative. 😉
The red hats didn't ruin red for me. Interesting that for your association with your own red hats let to the colors demise... red > red hats > hate the particular red hats > hate red
Blue was always my favorite color, but it's become a safe sort of background color, so it's started to feel boring and overused. These days I lean toward purple, but it in practice doesn't always look good on things.