Stephen Bay's Photography Blog

How to Predict Rainbows and Plan Photographs

Here’s a recent photo I made of a rainbow above San Diego’s downtown. I’ve been trying to get this image for a while now, probably a year or more. But I always kept missing. I would go to a spot where I thought a rainbow would appear and wait but I had no success. Rainbows are difficult to photograph in San Diego because it doesn’t rain much and when it does rain you need to be on the edge of the cloud system in order to catch the sun shining through.

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What’s Really Important in a Photograph

When I’m making a photograph, whether it’s a photo I’ve planned out well in advance or it’s something I stumbled upon in the moment, I think about the following elements: Subject Light Composition Uniqueness Technical Quality The first 3 are what I call the big three. These are the most important factors and if you get these right you’ll have a terrific photo. The last two items, don’t mean anything by themselves, but can take your photo to the next level or bring it down a notch.

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