During our week long winter break on Lanzarote in the Canary Islands my wife Liz and I spent most of our time driving around the rugged volcanic landscape and coast, away from the more developed tourist spots.
However, we did spend a few hours walking around and photographing the harbour and waterfront at Playa Blanca on the south coast of the island - definitely one of the more up-market tourist developments.
The harbour itself was the main attraction, with some very nice boats moored alongside waterfront restaurants and bars to admire.
In fact, I liked Playa Blanca so much that I made us stay until nightfall, parked up on the harbour wall, in order to shoot my Lanzarote Dusk Timelapse #2 video.
But before starting the shoot that resulted in that timelapse, we saw a beautiful, vivid rainbow start to form over the sunlit boats and waterfront.
Well, that must have been the quickest camera set up I ever achieved, trying desperately to capture the growth and decay of the rainbow as yet another time lapse.
But it was not to be, as after I'd managed to take just thirteen frames the rain that was providing the rainbow arrived, full on, over the harbour wall where I was set up.
Now I can handle a liitle rain to the rear or to the side of my camera, with the body and lens protected by an elasticated shower cap, but what I can't handle is rain coming at my camera head on, horizontally, covering my unprotected ND grad filter in running water!
So it was a swift retreat back to the safety of the car, from where Liz and I watched the rainbow finally fade away as the rain passed by and out to sea.
Then I was back out again to the same spot to record the hundreds of stills needed to capture the harbour scene as day faded to night, thankfully with no more rain!
But I didn't want to waste those thirteen frames showing the rainbow growing over Playa Blanca harbour, so in the end I strung them together in Adobe Lightroom to make this video slideshow, just to give some idea of the dramatic light show we had been treated to on that unexpected evening.
License this image (small rainbow)
License this image (large rainbow)
Filename - lanzarote playa blanca rainbow 01-13.jpg
Camera - Canon 6D
Lens - 24-105mm zoom @ 24mm
Exposure - 1/125 sec @ f8, ISO100
Filters - Polarising filter used to enhance rainbow colours. 2 stop neutral density graduated filter used to darken the sky.
Location - Playa Blanca, Lanzarote, Canary Islands
This image - 1280x720px JPEG
Conversion - Adobe Lightroom stills and video
Comments - Sequence captured as part of a failed time lapse attempt.
All content copyright © Howard Litherland 2009-2026 unless otherwise stated.