Rainbows on Coigach

“Good Things Come”

I love the west shore of Loch Bad a’ Gaill. you could spend months only here and by focusing on different compositions you could have an interesting portfolio. Yet I keep being drawn back to the same compositions. I like shooting in Autumn. Even in the middle of the day, the light can be beautiful. Especially in the mountains. I spent a few hours framing this composition during the day, and I like the warm to cool contrast in those shots. However, sometimes you need a little bit of luck with conditions to create something truly remarkable.

Walking home to the car around sunset, I wasn’t sure that they light was going to work, but when it did, I was lucky to have a composition preplanned. I didn’t have time to do anything. I left my video camera in the bag and set up on the marks my tripod had made earlier that day in the sand. Earlier I had been shooting with my 24-70, but when I set up, I found I had a 20mm lens on my camera. However, this extra space in the frame worked, and some of the elements I had manoeuvred out in the earlier composition work to great effect here. The stones act as anchor points stopping the eye from exiting the scene at the base of the image and the curve of the slither of sand in the foreground is echoes in the the lines in the headland, the patterns of the clouds and the rainbow above Stac Pollaidh. The edge Sgorr Tuath in the top right of the frame is softened by the rain rolling in, and become less of a distraction in this wider composition.