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I took this photo earlier this month in the field behind our home which is inundated with the Cup Plant. The sea of sunflower looking flowers has become an attractant for not only the birds, but also the butterflies. In this case the white Cabbage butterfly. I've been intrigued by butterflies in motion and wing movement. The distortion of the body, flexing of the wings, and the ability to hover while feeding caught my interest. I guess an excellent dancer would be judged on his or her talent and not by their costume. The somewhat boring white insect has shown some good dance moves. Tony Pocewicz of Carpentersville

I took this photo of a solitary lotus flower as it presides over the summer pond in our backyard. Jean K. Brown of Elgin

I took this photo of a deer outside by a garden. Pat Korlesky of Carpentersville

Every evening swarms of photographers flocked to the beach to take photos of stunning sunsets over Lake Michigan. It stuck me that to be different I needed a more interesting foreground. I noted a fisherman on the end of a pier, moved between the sunset and the fisherman and waited for him to cast. Jim Plueddemann of West Chicago

I took this picture in my flowers in my yard this summer. I used my Nikon D90 for this shot. I was setting up to take a close up of my flowers and this butterfly flew in for me to get this shot. Nancy Havener of Naperville

On a recent trip to California we decided to spend an afternoon on a whale watching expedition. Not knowing what to expect, we were somewhat skeptical about what we would see, and how easy it would be to find a whale in an ocean. That expedition turned out to be one of the highlights of the trip. We spent an hour with several whales and captured a ton of shots of a whale breaching as well as tail slapping. Len Baumgart of Roselle

The floating Torii Gate at sunset in the Bay of Miyajima Island, Japan on July 28, 2014. Sue Matsunaga of Vernon Hills

Lightning strikes past a tree on the night of August 2, the same storm that would later produce a tornado that would hit in Grayslake. Max Goldberg of Grayslake

A buck stands in the woods at Grant Woods Forest Preserve in Ingleside on July 29. Marty Krogh of Ingleside

Chicago Cubs player Addison Russell fights the sun while trying to catch a foul ball during a game on July 3 between the Cubs and the Florida Marlins at Wrigley Field. John Wysocki of Mount Prospect

Thistle at a construction site in Northbrook. Charlie Hartmann of Schaumburg

Purple coneflowers are bursting into bloom at the Chicago Botanic Garden on July 9 in Glencoe. Sheila O'Gara of Buffalo Grove