Photo courtesy of Danny Swarts Thousand Oaks photographer Danny Swarts' image of a barn and the Grand Tetons in Wyoming was one of 15 winners in Parade magazine's recent contest.

Swarts

Danny Swarts has a thing for barns. Now that attraction has paid off with a nice bit of national exposure for the Thousand Oaks photographer.

His rendering of a barn, the Grand Tetons and a fog bank reflecting a Wyoming sunrise has been named a winner in Parade magazine's "Celebrate America's Beauty" photo contest. Parade picked his and 15 other winners from among more than 62,000 entries nationwide. The winning shots were published in the Dec. 2 edition of the weekly national news circular.

Swarts, who found out that he won in mid-November, said he did not take the photo for the contest. Nor did he take it because of the Tetons. Or for the sunrise. Or for the fact, he said, that the barn was featured in the classic 1953 Western film "Shane."

He took it because of the building itself.

"No matter where I go," Swarts said, "I take pictures of barns. I love barns."

Swarts, 55, has had a photography business — weddings, portraits and such — in Ventura County for 15 years, but has cut back some to refocus his lens on landscapes. His studio now is in his Thousand Oaks home.

His winning photo was taken in July 2006 while Swarts was on vacation in Grand Teton National Park. He knew that the barn was there but didn't learn of its exact whereabouts until the afternoon before. Being a seasoned photographer — he's been involved in the art since the seventh grade — Swarts knew that sunrise would be an ideal time to take a picture of it.

It almost wasn't. He awoke in the wee hours of the next morning in Jackson Hole, Wyo., to gray, low clouds — poison to the lens. It was so foggy on the drive north from Jackson Hole "that I could barely see the road going out there." When he arrived, it was still ugly. But then Mother Nature intervened: The sun rose, the fog began to lift and a great moment was born. He used a 24 mm lens with variable wide-angle zoom, "nothing really that special," as he put it.

Swarts said he was completely happy with the photo. "Sometimes they need a little touch-up," he said, "but I didn't have to do anything with this one."

Fast-forward to this spring, when his wife, Janet, spied the Parade magazine contest in one of its Sunday editions. Swarts said he submitted three entries — the others were of Monument Valley and the Grand Canyon.

The win comes amid a banner period for Swarts: In January, he will pick up a Bronze Award from the Professional Photographers of America (also for landscape imagery); in addition, his work was honored recently by a Channel Islands photography club.

The West and its bevy of beautiful national parks were a strong influence in the Parade contest. Nine of the 16 published winners were shots taken from the region, including the grand prize winner (Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming) and the runner-up (Canyonlands National Park in Utah).

Those two photographers won vacations. Swarts was one of 14 other winners who received $100. In all, more than 100 people were honored; the rest have their photos on Parade's Web site.