Shooting the Rainbow

This overruns the text on the side, deliberately. Only the extra-large size shows the full rainbow.

On Sunday morning, the early sun pouring in through the windows of my studio/office, I suddenly realized I heard rain. I looked out at the rain falling in the pool through the full sunshine, and immediately went to the front window, facing west.

I haven't seen a full rainbow in a while, and this one proved to be a beauty. I went outside and stared for probably a full minute before it occurred to me to get my camera. Rainbows by their nature tend to be fleeting, and this vibrant only for a short time. Luckily I had left the polarizing filter on the camera so I did not have to fuss with that. I shot two of the full rainbow, and then two of the most vibrant section before it began to fade. The filter enabled me to capture what I saw completely. Without the polarizer, the purple/lavender visible to the eye faded into the blue of the sky through the camera.

We often hear, and say, that still photography 'captures the moment'. In the case of an early morning summer rainbow, that saying applies. A partial twin rainbow appeared to the left only briefly, and disappeared by the time I got the camera. That one remains a memory only.