A few years back the wife and I had our first ever view of the Badlands in South Dakota. It was cold, windy and could only be enjoyed form the inside of the car. The photo doesn't capture the cold or the wind but it does capture the color, texture and eerie landscape that has drawn us back.
Tony Pocewicz of Carpentersville
Each week you submit your favorite photo. We pick the best of them and select the finalists. Here are the finalists for the week of March 23.
Early morning view of the Grand Canyon from Yavapai Point on September 10, 2014.
Paul Halco of Hoffman Estates
The sun sets behind waving flora at Busse Woods in Elk Grove Village on a Saturday afternoon March 14.
Carole Walther of Elk Grove Village
Chicago Blackhawks' goalie Corey Crawford makes a save against the New York Islanders at the United Center in Chicago on March 17.
John Wysocki of Mount Prospect
A fawn stares out as it stands in a Kildeer yard last spring.
Debra Ferguson of Kildeer
I took this on one of the first really nice mornings of the recent warm-up. It's one of my favorite trees on the drive to work.
Tom Nicol of Geneva
We took a vacation to Florida this winter to escape the bitter cold. What a nice feeling it was to photograph this Sanibel Island sunset at the end of an 80-degree day. And to have a pelican fly into the picture frame at just the right moment was an added bonus!
Mike Weimer of St. Charles
The sun sets over hole six at the Village Green Golf Course in Mundelein last month.
Monika Sankpal of Grayslake
Cactus are blooming at the Arizona Sonora Desert Museum in Tucson, Arizona after a warm winter this year, over a month earlier than usual.
Nancy Giardina of Libertyville
This photo of my woodpecker nesting box speaks for itself.The box is hung in my Gingko tree in Lombard.
Jerry Orzech, from Lombard
Visited St. Maarten Island in the Caribbean for some warm sun at the beginning of March. This is one of the many sunsets we viewed over the Caribbean. The clouds helped to capture the warm glow of the evening.
Tony Lyons, from Wheaton
I call this photo "Sawhorse Spiral" because it is a macro photo featuring the spirals inside of an orange sawhorse construction lamp. I found the light on the ground that had broken off the rest of the sawhorse. I took a photo with my macro lens aimed inside of it to get this photo. It reminds me of how water ripples when someone throws a stone into a pond.
Angela Cichosz, from Carol Stream