After The Storm

One of my favourite travel destinations is Alberta, Canada.

In part this is due to family history, but mostly it’s about its open and dramatic natural beauty.

Alberta is big sky country. East of the Rocky Mountains the topography is more or less flat which means you can see forever in every direction. The weather is an open book. Last year I visited in late spring when wet weather was more the rule than the exception. This actually created wonderful opportunities to capture the skies at their most dramatic.

My brother has always had an interest in meteorology, so when we go driving together I always receive an entertaining explanation of what that big fluffy towering cloud means, or how long it’ll take for that curtain of rain to close over our stretch of highway. Rainbows I can figure out on my own, and I always look for them after a storm.

One day when we were travelling south of Calgary heading back into town I witnessed this magnificent rainbow to the east of us. I pulled out my camera and just started snapping away hoping to capture a reasonable representation of it. Given the fact we were moving at a hurtling pace down the highway I’m pretty happy with the result.

LIke the reflection of stain glass in an old church rainbows give us an opportunity to look up and away from our grey existence and the storm clouds that billow around us. To find hope and courage in even the most volatile and foreboding of circumstances. They encourage us to take a breath while their beauty takes our breath away.

Remember to look up …