The Aperture Nature Photography Workshop takes place at some of the the world’s most beautiful and photogenic places: America’s National Parks. And it’s free!

The catch is, you have to enter a contest and win to attend this unique and intensive four-day workshop. With so many contests out there these days, many with high entry fees, it’s hard not to be cynical about the value of entering and winning.

But this workshop, where I’m teaching right now in Jackson Hole, Wyoming is unique in a number of ways. You can only enter one image (entry is free). You have to be one of four winners to attend. There are four professional workshop leaders: a 1:1 teacher/student ratio.

One of the photographer/workshop leaders is Martin Gisborne, Aperture Product Marketing Manager who aside from leading a shooting session, takes students on a four-day comprehensive Aperture training session where they learn to process the images they make every day.

Aperture Workshop Leader Scott Stulberg photographs in Grand Teton National Park. Photo Steve Simon.

It’s too late to get to this one, but there are three more workshops to come: Yosemite, Yellowstone and Olympic National Parks.

If an all-expense paid Aperture Nature Workshop to a beautiful place is not enough to entice you, each winner also gets $3,300 in prizes, including a Firewire Drobo, $350 worth of Lensbaby gear, a Premium subscription to lynda.com, a set of all current Peachpit Press Photo-related books, ThinkTank 360 Photo Bag, a lifetime Pro Membership to Photrade, a copy of Aperture 2.1 and more goodies.

Conceived by wildlife photographer and Aperture T3 expert Scott Bourne, entry into the next workshop contest will be open in about 10 days. All the information you need, including the winning entries from this workshop are at f64.com. Good luck!