Rainbows always put on a display of wonder. Invariably, the insidious nature of their creation always catches me by surprise. My photography style entails sunny blue skies, so on days with rain and storms passing through, I’m usually inside advancing my photography on the business side of things. As a result, none of the images on this page were planned.
In fact, I almost blew the print called Dayton Rainbow Skyline. I was standing in the rain, fighting to keep my lens free of raindrops as I shot the Dayton Skyline at sunset. After carefully shooting a 49-image panorama I was hoping my technique captured a setting sun starburst and the Dayton Skyline. When I backed up from my tripod, I realized I was so engrossed in keeping my lens dry, I failed to note the rainbow that arched through the sky behind me. Fortunately, following my last shot, I hadn’t moved the camera or tripod, so I continued creating an even wider panorama. In short, in pursuing the big picture, I had almost missed an even larger one.
For me, I always prefer capturing rainbows at the end of the day. Since the center of the rainbow is 180 degrees opposite the sun, rainbows that occur in the middle of the day are often truncated due to the sun’s altitude above the horizon.
