The Personal Geometry of a Rainbow

On Standing Inside a Moment of Light.

Today I learned that a rainbow is not an object in the sky.

It feels obvious once known, yet almost nobody walks around knowing it: every rainbow belongs to a single observer.

The circle of colour forms around the shadow of the person who sees it. Two people standing beside one another do not see the same arc as each stands at the centre of their own. Move a few steps and the rainbow quietly reorganises itself around you.

The sky is not placing a sign in the distance. It is completing a relationship.

Perhaps this is why rainbows feel intimate despite their scale. They are vast, yet oddly private—a phenomenon that only exists fully from one coordinate in space and time.

For a moment, the world arranges itself around a point of perception and colour becomes a consequence of presence.

I photographed mine quickly, almost carelessly, before it vanished. Now I realise I did not capture the rainbow.

I captured where I stood.

Mojave after rain