Still time to enter the 2011 National Park photo contest

The National Park Service encourages all Americans to participate in the Share the Experience Photo Contest and join the ranks of Ansel Adams, Thomas Moran, and others who have created masterpieces depicting the nation’s public lands. The photo taken by the grand prize winner will appear on a 2012 America the Beautiful National Parks and Federal Recreational Lands Pass. He or she will receive a prize package that includes a trip for four to a federal recreation area, photography equipment and a pass to the national parks and other federal lands for 2012. Second-, third-, and fourth-place winners, and 10 Honorable Mention winners will also receive prizes.

The contest runs through December 31, 2010. Amateur photographers canparticipate by uploading photos on www.sharetheexperience.org or through Facebook, Flickr, or Shutterfly to the contest website.

“We always encourage the American people to visit and experience their national parks,” said National Park Service Director Jonathan Jarvis. “We especially do so now, in the weeks before the Share the Experience deadline. Photography is very much about seeing. Head to a national park and really see it through the lens of your camera.”

Few Americans live far from one of the country’s 393 national parks. These protected places come in all sizes. They can be found in cities (for example, Golden Gate National Recreation Area in San Francisco) as well as in areas on which humans have had less impact. They preserve natural features like the Everglades and the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, and historic sites like Independence Hall and the farm on which Abraham Lincoln lived as a boy and a young man.

Share the Experience, the official photo contest of America’s national parks and federal recreational lands, is sponsored by Olympus and the National Park Foundation. Olympus and the National Park Foundation offer Share the Experience in partnership with the National Park Service, the Bureau of Land Management, the Bureau of Reclamation, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and the U.S. Forest Service.

The annual Share the Experience contest showcases the more than 500 million acres of federal lands and draws entries from all across the United States. It is the largest national park and public land photo contest for amateur photographers.

“We always tell people in parks to take only pictures and leave only footprints,” said Neil Mulholland, President and CEO of the National Park Foundation. “Our annual photo contest is a great reason to get outside and capture the incredible places preserved in our national parks.”