Wow, lots of really beautiful shots there. And a couple of potential bokeh contest entries, too, I see.
The contests are always in my mind nowadays. I’m looking for shots of every contest I can remember-scheduled, hoppered, or suggested.
Today we did a hike we’ve done a few times before, but the wildflowers were just unbelievable. I was planning on pausing on the way down and getting my macro lens out for the flowers, but a huge thunderstorm built up really fast between ~11:30 and noon, and we had to really book it down the mountain. There was a point at which I was practically flying down the trail as the clouds spat little raindrops at me and thunder echoed off all the mountainsides nearby. I even saw a couple of snowflakes. We managed to make it back to the car in record time-45 minutes from the top (it normally takes us 2-3 hours to hike up and about 1.5 hours to hike down), and just before the rain started in earnest. That has got to be the fastest I’ve ever moved above 10,000 feet. The endorphin rush when we made it back was awesome. Too bad I completely missed all the beautiful flowers, though.