Tag Archives: Rainbows

Kohala clouds

Driving home from work I saw this scene in front of me on the hill leading towards Hawi. It was such a striking example of the weather around here that I was moved to pull over and take a couple of photos.

The top photo shows the blue skies and scattered white clouds I’d been working under all day, and was standing under to take the photo. The gray band is wind-driven, low cloud being blown from east to west along the northern coast of the island, and blotting out the sun in this area. Under this band it was raining and visibility was poor. The cloud is channeled in this way by the northern shoulder of Kohala Mountain. As the band moved out over the ocean it became less pronounced as it dissipated.

Turning to my right, I took the bottom photo, a rainbow formed by the sun at my back and moisture tumbling over the mountain’s shoulder.

Rainbow around the sun

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For my last response to Becky’s April Squares challenge theme of ‘Bright,’ (see more responses here) I had scheduled a flower photo. But a couple of days ago I shot this image, which is decidedly bright and comes with a story.

I’d been cleaning a vehicle and found a single lens from a pair of sunglasses. It was one of those with a reflective blue surface, which I thought looked interesting. As I walked away, I fiddled with the lens, moving it around, seeing the different reflections. Then I held the lens directly in front of me and saw my image backlit with bright light and with a rainbow halo perfectly centered around my head. I looked like one of those biblical illustrations in religious manuscripts or a stained glass window (a lot of those guys were gnarly-looking, too).

Looking at this image, I wondered how it was that the lens had created this rainbow halo and why it was around my head. But there it was, still there, still in place. It took a while before the thought filtered into my tiny brain that, since my image was reflected there, perhaps something else was, too. At that point I turned around, looked up, and saw this halo around the sun.

This one wasn’t as good as one I posted last year, but it’s the first I’ve seen since then and it’s certainly the closest I’ll get to being in The Bible.

Rainbow violet

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A Rainbow over the road in North Kohala, Hawaii

A Japanese white-eye on a Japanese aloe flower

The seventh and final installment of my rainbow colors in response to Becky’s April Squares challenge theme of ‘Bright.’ (See more responses here.) ‘Violet’ also happens to be this week’s Sunday Stills challenge theme, which is what gave me the rainbow series idea in the first place. (See more responses here.)

My last rainbow spans the main highway to North Kohala. This is a good spot to see rainbows in the afternoon. It’s cloudy and wet toward Kohala Mountain on the right, sunny and dry down by the coast on the left.

This phalaenopsis orchid falls somewhere in the violet/purple range. This was another instance where I looked up the official RGB color values for violet and found quite a range of possibilities.

The final photo has a Japanese white-eye sampling the good things on offer in a Japanese aloe flower, backed up by a bold and bright splash of violet bougainvillea flowers.

Rainbow blue

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The front of the Old Hawaiian Trading Company store in Kapaau, Hawaii

This is the sixth of my rainbow colors in response to Becky’s April Squares challenge theme of ‘Bright.’ (See more responses here.)

Today’s rainbow arches above Lapakahi State Historical Park in North Kohala. Lapakahi was an old Hawaiian fishing village and the ruins give some insight into the life and culture of those people.

Second is a blue offering hanging outside the predominantly red and green Old Hawaiian Trading Company in Kapaau.

Third is all that’s left of the Bank of Hawaii in Kapaau. The bank used to occupy the whole building, but it’s now used as a senior center.

Rainbow Cyan

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This is the fifth of my rainbow colors in response to Becky’s April Squares challenge theme of ‘Bright.’ (See more responses here.) It’s also where I get into trouble. Cyan? What’s cyan doing in a rainbow? What happened to blue?

Well, blue is coming. What’s gone is indigo. The traditional rainbow colors are red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet. These colors were assigned by Sir Isaac Newton way back in the 1600s. In fact, he started with just five colors – red, yellow, green, blue and violet. Later, he added orange and indigo to the color spectrum. These days though, what Newton called blue is today called cyan, and what he called indigo is now called blue.

In reality, there are no bands of color in a rainbow. There’s a continuous gradation of color. The bands are seen because the human eye is limited in the colors it perceives. Converted to black and white, the bands dissolve.

So, for my rainbow colors, I looked at my photos and what I see are red, orange, yellow, green, cyan, blue and violet. Of course, if you look at the colors on the inside of a rainbow, you’ll see they keep going, back through the same sequence. And where the red of this supplementary rainbow overlaps the violet of the primary, the result is more of a purple color.

Having labored through all that, today’s rainbow is a small, bright segment on the ocean, with a black and white version of the same image. Then we have a patch of sand underwater, showing different patterns and colors. Finally, a bullethead parrotfish, bashes its beak on some coral in its pursuit of food.

Rainbow green

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Number four of my rainbow colors in response to Becky’s April Squares challenge theme of ‘Bright.’ (See more responses here.)

This rainbow soared over the tsunami siren above Kapaa Park on the Kohala coast. I found the stray float catching the sunlight as it drifted in the water. The buildings of the Kohala Town Center in Kapaau are painted in very bright colors, including this vibrant green railing.

Rainbow yellow

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The third of my rainbow colors in response to Becky’s April Squares challenge theme of ‘Bright.’ (See more responses here.)

Today’s rainbow was taken from Kohala Mountain Road and looks down towards the southern edge of Waimea.

In the middle, a bright yellow saffron finch perches on a bare branch of a plumeria. There were zero leaves on this tree and only a few budding flowers, such as the one next to the finch.

And finally, the yellow robe of the painted statue of King Kamehameha I in Kapaau.

Rainbow orange

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This is the second of my little series of rainbow colors in response to Becky’s April Squares challenge theme of ‘Bright.’ (See more responses here.)

In the top photo, a rainbow arcs over the port of Kawaihae.

Below that are orange flags available for waving while crossing the street. I haven’t yet felt the need to use them, still being able to leap out of the way of drivers focused on their phones! Actually, drivers here are pretty good about stopping for people to cross the street. I’m more surprised by how many people will just step out into traffic 20 feet up from the crosswalk. Then they look aggrieved if you fail to stop instantaneously.

The bottom photo shows the lovely flower of the kou tree (Cordia subcordata). Kou is indigenous to Hawaii but is also a canoe plant, brought here by Polynesian settlers. It likes the sun and grows along the coast.

Graham's Island

Life on the Big Island of Hawaii