This one definitely isn’t going to win any photography awards, but what the hell, rainbows are nice to look at, particularly when the light is bright enough to produce the rare double rainbow. On which the colours are always the other way around, remember. This shot also records the other thing you need for a rainbow, beyond the light…. A sign of authenticity at least?
Rainbows are a kind of cheap shot, but they usually offer something — you at least know there will be colour, shadow and light all around somewhere. This was taken from inside, after I glimpsed the possibility while drifting off in the post-lunch death slot at the seminar I attended today. There’s a double rainbow visible if you look closely.
Incidentally, this is Alan Turing’s second memorial appearance on the blog after his statue made it back last year.
Joe is on his half-term holiday, so these two days I’m off work doing my part of the child care duties. And I decided to take him somewhere I liked. Why not.
Newspaper editors in London might also like to use this picture as evidence that today was not, despite their headlines, the day that the ‘Killer Storm Stopped Britain’. Or perhaps they were using ‘Britain’ as shorthand for ‘that small part of a decent-sized country which is nearest to London’ — as they so often do?
I’ve only ever seen this a couple of times before — a rainbow, or at least a spectrum, high in the air, nowhere near the ground and with no rain in sight. I guess it must be caused by light refracting through ice crystals in the upper atmosphere. Bad weather on the way perhaps. Let’s hope not: I intend to spend next weekend walking in Norway.
POSTSCRIPT: Have discovered this is something called a ‘circumzenithal arc’. They are not rare as such, but apparently only appear when the sun is at exactly the right angle to ice crystals in high-level clouds, and thus can be seen only in very restricted locations on the ground. So if you do see one, feel privileged – it may well only be visible in a space a few metres around you.
Can something be both colourful and gloomy at the same time? I think this rainbow manages it. I love the way the houses at the end, lit by the early morning sun, glow like little nuggets of gold at the end of the…. whatever, you know what I’m saying.
