Rainbow Pelican by Priyanka Arora

Description

This was probably the most unique shooting experience we’ve had. My husband and I were driving by the Indian River in Sebastian looking for White Pelicans just before a thunderstorm. We spotted a few and stopped but as soon as we got out of the car it started raining. We stayed in the car for a few minutes and noticed a nice evening sun glow on one of the Pelicans. We looked up at the sky behind us and realized that while half the sky was overcast and pouring, the other half (the one with the setting sun behind us) was bright and clear. We got out of the car and saw this vibrant horizon to horizon rainbow. I typically prefer a low perspective in my photos so I can get eye level with the subject but we were by a pier and a boat ramp so getting close to water level wasn’t an option. Aligning these birds so they would fit the frame with a substantial amount of the rainbow was a whole other compositional challenge. And never having had to expose for the bird and the bright colors in the sky in a single image, finding the right settings was a total experiment. But this was an opportunity I was not going to pass up. We were quite fortunate that this rainbow lasted nearly an hour giving us time to figure it all out. I got soaking wet in the rain but managed to get this shot with the Pelican. While the overall overcast color of the sky and the strong waves in the water depict the dark and stormy nature of the scene, the soft glow on the Pelican and the vibrant colors of the rainbow add a nice hopeful contrast.

Species

American White Pelican