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'You've got to come and see this - and bring your camera!' My wife Liz blurted out as she arrived breathless at our cabin on board the P&O liner Azura, sailing southwards through the North Sea under leaden skies.
I woke up from my snooze rather startled, wondering what all the fuss was about, grabbed my camera and followed her up on deck where a good number of other passengers were already gathered, 'oohing' and 'aahing' and excitedly holding smartphones at arms length over the railings.
Finding a gap next to the wooden rail I then saw what was the cause of the excitement, a magnificent and vivid rainbow had appeared on the horizon, glowing like a beacon of light against the dark skies above and the dark waters below.
Photographing rainbows to bring out the best of the colours requires a bit of technology and knowledge.
In this case the technology was the use of a polarising filter, rotated until the rainbow's colours were at their most vivid, and the knowledge was the deliberate under exposing of the image to make sure none of the rainbow's colours exceeded the capability of my camera's sensor to record them fully.
So I soon overcame my bemusement at being woken up so abruptly and enjoyed the next few minutes of glorious light until the clouds closed over the sun once again and the scene returned to grey.
Filename - north sea rainbow 01
Camera - Canon 6D
Lens - 17-40mm zoom @ 29mm
Exposure - 1/320 sec @ f5.6, ISO100
Filters - Polarising filter used to emphasise colour
Location - P&O liner Azura, North Sea
This image - 800x450px JPEG
Conversion - Adobe Lightroom
Comments - Image deliberately under exposed to preserve colours
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