How to capture rainbows – with myth or science?

[Tin Can]

True, what's your address?

I used to live at Bloomingdale Arts Building in Logan Sq...

Just because it isn't there in the photograph doesn't mean it wasn't there to begin with !

[Drew Wiley]

Don't need any approach. They're common enough. Particularly abundant in Hawaii, which appropriately has a rainbow even on its license plate. And as usual, I think Galen was full of bunk, and simply shot them opportunistically just like anyone else would do. Every Junior High science student should know what causes rainbows - well, should know at least. That rainbow over the Potola thing is a Disneylandish cliche as far as I'm concerned. Just another postcard. Only millions of people have been there by now. It's a big city with steady tourist traffic. Not like back in the 19th century when you could get beheaded for sneaking into Tibet. Galen's sense of Zen was about as good as a pocket gopher's sense of flight - it happens, but only if a hawk is involved. As a mountaineer, he would have known that rainbows can occur under all kinds of conditions and angles other than he described. He looked that up somewhere. But maybe it was for sake of sounding like a serious visual technician when you really aren't. Just more of his predictable marketing persona. Maybe we should include Newton's Rings in this thread too. They are the most common kind of rainbows.

[Vaughn]

Easy to do, just hold your stick and make a wish. (Bryce)

Sorry -- MF, not LF

[Tin Can]

Wizard!

[Drew Wiley]

I'm more impressed by flying kites in lightning storms. That can be photographed too, both pre-mortem and postmortem.

[Heroique]

If a member posted the Nevada Fall image, they would likely get back the diagnosis of light leak/flair.

I've shot rainbows in black-and-white a few times; they end up just being a white curve in the sky. This can be effective, but often it's just a let down. Color can be better for some things. Doremus

Spurred by the comments above, I did some quick research into AA's "Nevada Fall, Rainbow" to share his personal opinion about the 1947 image.



Some interesting remarks from the anseladams.com site:

Despite the lengthy time to consider his set up, Adams didn't capture it exactly as he wanted, as he writes in Examples: The Making of 40 Photographs: "I missed on one small detail which ruffled; the right-hand tree of the two little cedars near the center of the image meets a branch from a nearby tree. I should have lowered the camera at least a foot to avoid this merger."

While composing the image, Adams struggled to keep the camera dry in the mist. He recalled that "'the sound and fury of the waterfall, the clean air, and driving mist were unforgettable."

Later in answer to critics questioning the artistic merit of the photograph, he responded: "Some urban aesthetes claim this photograph is just a bit of scenery and is certainly not art. May they and their opinions rest in peace! I think it is a choice bit of Chaos organized into some kind of expressive Order. I do not desire to impose a definition of creativity on anyone."

I must say that "light leaks" and "just being a white curve" do come to mind. ;^)