Another Rainbow
Nov, 2014Views
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Behind The Lens
Location
This photo was taken in the rural part of my town in Dundalk. This photograph was taken the same year I'd taken up photography so it's surprising it's one of the most popular.Time
I took it in the late August afternoon light at exactly 18:31pm. I was sitting on my laptop looking at the amazing image of a similar rainbow complete with hay bale in a rural setting and thinking to myself ''I wish I could take a good photo of a rainbow like this one''. I looked out my window and saw how the weather seemed to be just right for a possible rainbow to appear. I took my wife and kids in the car with me and said ''Today we are going to go looking for a rainbow and photograph it''. They all looked at each other and laughed but literally 5 minutes around the corner from my home we passed a field and there it was, my big glorious rainbow stretching over a field. With the knowledge that rainbows don't last long I pulled over the car immediately and jumped out. I ran over and was immediately met with a small river and bunch of thorns and nettles. I was wearing sandals but I didn't care, nothing was going to stop me from getting into that field. With the rain spitting on my face I decided to make a dash through the nettles and thorns. Emerging with cuts and scrapes the excitement was overwhelming to the point where I didn't notice the pain at all. In my rush to get the photograph I went to my minimum of f/8 and 160th of a second because my hand was shaking really badly from the adrenaline. I took numerous ones but settled on this one for the obvious reason of foreground and lighting.Lighting
I noticed how some light was on the hay bale but a lot of shadow was in the foreground. I could have went to another hay bale but I really admired the transition from darkness to light and then to the darkness of the cloud again. It was as if the photograph was telling a story and so I really enjoyed that concept of darkness to light.Equipment
This was shot handheld with an Olympus OMD EM-5 with a 12-50mm kit lens.Inspiration
Believe it or not it was actually someone who did a similar image on viewbug and they got featured. Looking at the photo I decided I wanted something similar that I could be proud of.Editing
I just used lightroom for my initial editing, sent it to photo shop where I did some dodging and burning and that was it. I tend not to go to heavy on my editing because that's just my style so a little bit of dodging and burning is all I did here to accentuate what it was I saw such as the shadows and lighting and bring back the sky with a gradient.In my camera bag
At present I'm using a Canon 5D MII. The lens I use is a Sigma 70-200mm 2.8, Tamron 24-70mm 2.8 and a Samyang 14mm 2.8.Feedback
We all use weather apps to be able to see ahead of time the incoming weather but sometimes all it takes is looking out your window. It's important to remain positive about what it is you want to capture. I walked out that day with the actual picture of the rainbow already in my head. I knew I was going to get one it was just a matter of going out to do it. With rainbows there's no knowing where they will appear but it's important to find for yourself the environment they're most popular in like I did in order to capture the same.
