I have a love-hate relationship with rainbows, and I love and hate them for the same reason: their elusiveness. You don’t see them very often, at least where I live, so on those rare occasions when they appear, I stare at them and admire their beauty. But with my camera in hand, they cause stress. You can’t scout for them, nor can you comfortably set up your camera and wait for them to appear right where you want them in your frame. It’s always a gamble and a rush because you never know where they show up and how long they last.

So I couldn’t believe my luck when I took a picture of the Creac’h lighthouse on Ouessant, a small and lovely island off the coast of North-Western France. This lighthouse, 47m tall, was built in 1863 and is the most powerful in Europe. With its black and white stripes, it is, for my taste, the most beautiful of the five lighthouses on the island.

I had set up my tripod and camera, framed the picture, and took a few images with the dramatic clouds, which provided a perfect background for this beautiful lighthouse, illuminated by a few sun rays behind me. All of a sudden, as is often the case in autumn on this island, it started to rain, and this fantastic rainbow started to appear, crossing my frame in a way that I couldn’t have set up in a better way. Five minutes and various shots later, the show was over.