⏱️ Reading time: 5 min
Table of contents
- Diary of a different sunrise at Santa Comba
- A small recommendation before continuing
- When photography appears where you weren’t looking for it
- The moment when everything aligns
- Why does a rainbow appear?
- Even more luck, double rainbow
- A diary of light, chance and attention
- Another article within a photographic diary
Diary of a different sunrise at Santa Comba
There are periods when time seems to open a little more than usual.
These holiday days are allowing something that isn’t usually part of my routine: going out to photograph at sunrise, without hurry, letting the morning set the pace. It is Christmas time, yes, but beyond the calendar, these are days when the body and mind appreciate slowing down and observing calmly.
With that in mind, I went back to Santa Comba beach, a place I don’t visit often and that I feel I haven’t fully explored yet. I had already been there a few days earlier, looking for compositions in a small cove with interesting rock formations. That day, however, the sky was mediocre and uninspiring. Gray, flat, and without the spark I always seek, which gives more epic feeling to my photographs.
A few days later, I decided to return. The forecast predicted a sky with more character, although the tide worked against me and prevented me from reaching the area I had initially planned.
A small recommendation before continuing
While writing this article, it was impossible not to have in my mind the cover and music of one of the albums that has marked me the most: The Dark Side of the Moon by Pink Floyd.
So, here’s the album on YouTube: Give it a listen!
White light decomposing, colors, physics and emotion coexisting in the same space. If you want, I sincerely think it’s a perfect soundtrack to accompany the reading of what follows.
Let’s continue!
When photography appears where you weren’t looking for it
For a while I tried to find something in that first area of the cove. I tried different compositions, looked for alternatives… I’m quite stubborn, yes haha. But nothing seemed to work, I wasn’t convinced by what I was doing.
Until, in one of those moments when you decide to stop, I raised my head, breathed, looked around and turned to the other side of the beach.
The sky started to glow in pink, magenta and golden tones. Without thinking too much, I grabbed my gear and headed to that area, even though I knew it wouldn’t be easy compositionally. That area had few rocks for possible foregrounds and a more open space than I usually work with.
That’s when the first unexpected sign appeared: a fragment of rainbow just next to the Santa Comba hermitage.
Then, I began moving, looking for compositions, a bit obsessed with integrating that final part of the arc with the hermitage. But while taking photos, I realized that something bigger was happening: it wasn’t just a fragment.
The rainbow was completing itself in front of me!
The moment when everything aligns
Within seconds, what was previously a detail became a complete phenomenon: the whole arc drawn in the sky, something I had never photographed before.
There was no time to lose. I quickly changed position, looking for rocks that could work as a foreground.
After testing, I realized that a horizontal photo wouldn’t convey the strength of the moment. The sky demanded space, breadth, and the dialogue between land and air needed more room.
So I opted for a panoramic, intending that the rocks in the foreground formed a visual arc that would dialogue, without being fully symmetrical, with the rainbow in the sky.
After a while setting up my composition, another surprise arrived: it wasn’t just one rainbow, but a complete double rainbow. And between them, a perfectly visible dark band.
It’s incredible how, at first, when I’m so focused on composition and photography, I missed what was happening right in front of me. A double rainbow!
Why does a rainbow appear?
A rainbow isn’t a simple arc of colors in the sky, but an optical phenomenon that arises from the interaction of light with a multitude of water droplets suspended in the atmosphere. When the Sun’s rays enter the droplets, the light, traveling as a “white” ray, changes medium from air to water: it slows down and changes direction. Inside the droplet, some of this refracted light reflects internally on the opposite surface, and when it exits the droplet again, it refracts once more.
Because each color of the spectrum bends at a slightly different angle, the result is the separation of colors we see in the primary arc.
In the main arc, the light that underwent a single internal reflection exits the drops forming a semicircle of colors with red on the outside and violet on the inside, at a typical angle of approximately 42° relative to the antisolar line (the point directly opposite the Sun from your eyes).
Even more luck, double rainbow
A double rainbow appears when, under certain conditions, some of the light is reflected twice inside the droplets before exiting. That second bounce reduces the intensity of the light (so this secondary arc is fainter). In this case, the color order is reversed: violet on the outside and red on the inside, located about 10° beyond the primary arc, around 50–53°.
Between these two arcs, a visibly darker band of sky can be seen, called Alexander’s dark band. This stripe produces the contrast between the arcs because the light refracted at the different angles involved does not reach the observer’s eye in that region, leaving an area where less light arrives from the reflection and refraction processes that form the arcs.
In practice, these arcs appear when the Sun is low in the sky and raindrops are still present in front of the observer, just like that sunrise at Santa Comba. The Sun behind and rain over the sea allowed this optical phenomenon to form with all its components, including the secondary arc and its characteristic dark band.
A diary of light, chance and attention
This photograph was not planned.
I didn’t know I would end up making a panoramic, nor that a complete rainbow would appear, let alone a double rainbow with all its visible components. But there was something essential beforehand: being there, waking up early, accepting that the initial idea wouldn’t work, keeping my gaze attentive and mind alert.
Sometimes photography isn’t about chasing a specific image, but about recognizing the moment when it appears.
This sunrise at Santa Comba was that: a lesson in attention, in changing plans, and in how light, when it wants, writes its own story.
Another article within a photographic diary
This text is part of a series of articles in which photography is only the starting point. Stories where I talk about images, yes, but also about what lies behind them: waiting, doubts, mistakes, unexpected moments, and the lessons that come with each outing.
Just like in Perseverance in Photography, here I do not aim to explain how a photo was made per se, but to share the journey to reach it. A kind of diary in which technique, experience and reflection walk together. Because for me, photography does not end when the shutter is pressed.
Many times, that’s exactly when it begins!
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