Story
Through the absolute miracle of being in the right place at the right time, I captured this photograph: a complete, 360-degree rainbow.
The image was taken with a drone about 400 feet above the Carquinez Strait near Benicia—and the full circle existed for only a minute or two before it disappeared.
At the time, I had been experimenting with 360-degree panoramas. I even had VR goggles so people could stand inside the scene and look around in every direction. Benicia, where I live, is a remarkably picturesque town, and I had been creating a collection of immersive panoramas from different locations around the waterfront.
That morning, however, I had a completely different photograph in mind.
There’s a small, weathered shack along the water—a broken-down boathouse of sorts. It’s not accessible by land, but with a drone I could fly out to it. My goal was to photograph the sunrise illuminating the building.
When I woke up, the sky was heavily clouded. Normally that would mean skipping sunrise photography, but I’ve learned something over the years: sometimes there’s a narrow gap between the horizon and the cloud layer. When the sun rises through that gap, the light can be spectacular.
So I went anyway.
When I arrived at the shoreline, I could see that narrow ribbon of clear sky along the horizon. The sun had just begun to peek through it. I knew it might take a while before the light reached the boathouse—and it wasn’t even certain the sun would climb high enough before disappearing behind the clouds again.
Still, I launched the drone and flew toward the shack to be ready.
That’s when I noticed it.
Behind me—just visible at first—was the bottom of a rainbow.
I rotated the drone and saw the arc forming. With drones and rainbows there’s an interesting phenomenon: as you rise above the horizon line, you begin to see more of the curve because the lower portion of the rainbow is no longer hidden by the horizon.
So I climbed.
Higher and higher.
More of the arc appeared. Beneath it, the water of the strait carried a faint mist that seemed to complete the lower portion of the circle. As the drone rose, the rainbow kept expanding until suddenly I realized what was happening.
The circle was closing.
I barely had time to think. There was no opportunity to carefully compose the scene. I simply switched the drone into 360-degree panorama mode. The drone began capturing the sequence—about thirty-six images, each taken a couple of seconds apart, while the camera rotated in every direction.
The entire process takes roughly a minute.
Just after the sequence finished, the rainbow began to fade. First the upper arc dissolved, then the rest gradually disappeared until only a faint trace remained near the horizon.
The moment was over almost as quickly as it had appeared.
I flew the drone back feeling like I had just witnessed something extraordinary. Later that morning, the sun did finally illuminate the little boathouse, and I captured that panorama as well.
But the real gift of that morning was this image.
A complete rainbow, suspended over the water—visible for only a few fleeting minutes. I went home feeling like I had received a gift, but I still wondered: how would it look in the final photo? Would the 36 frames stitch together well enough?
I plugged the SD card into the computer, opened the file, and there it was—the perfect scene. A full circular rainbow, perfectly stitched together, with the sun behind the scene casting a soft orange and yellow glow along the edges of the sky.
Amazing.
I’ve seen the phenomenon once more since then, again over water and again with the drone high enough to reveal the full circle. It makes me think airplane pilots must see it often. I even asked a pilot friend of mine.
He said he never had.
So perhaps it really was what it felt like that morning:
A small miracle of light, timing, and perspective.
Miracle Rainbow.