Aerial Rainbow, near the coast of Mayo

In early 2013, I was invited to fly with Irish Lights on a helicopter maintenance run up the coast of Mayo. That winter had been relentless, storm after storm battering the coastline, and they needed to check lighthouses and navigation aids for damage. I was fortunate enough to be offered a seat.

Somewhere out over the Atlantic we flew through a heavy squall. Rain hammering the fuselage, visibility gone. Then a break opened behind us and sunlight punched through the cloud into the rain we were passing through. That's when it appeared. A full circular rainbow.

On the ground, you only ever see a half arc because the earth gets in the way. From the air, with nothing below but dark winter ocean, the geometry completes itself. I knew this intellectually. Seeing it is something else entirely. I had a narrow sliding air vent in the window beside the pilot, not much more than a slot, and I got the lens out through it and fired off a sequence of frames. Maybe thirty seconds before we flew past it.

Turbulence, rain streaming across the perspex, bouncing around in the seat. Far from ideal. But the image landed. A complete circle of light suspended over open ocean, that deep green you get off the Mayo coast when the sky is heavy. You can even make out a faint secondary rainbow outside the main arc if you look carefully. I've never seen anything like it before or since!