Klassy wins international photo award for second straight year

A Havre photogapher has won, for the second-straight year, international acclaim.

Todd Klassy's photograph of wheat fields in front of mountains near Geraldine, published in the March 2017 issue of Montana Quarterly, was awarded first place in the Nature/Landscape Category of The International Federation of Agriculture Journalists Star Prize for Photopraphy, presented last week in Pretoria, South Africa.

Klassy said the award came as a surprise.

"I was on the road when the Tweet came in," he said in a release emailed to the Havre Daily News. "Last year, the awards ceremony was in June, so I didn't expect any news until then. So, I was a little shocked when I received a message telling me I won now in early April."

"I am honored to have won the contest,"he added. "And I couldn't be happier to see the beauty of Montana agriculture featured on an international stage. It really is a little overwhelming."

A photograph Klassy took of a cowboy and a dog herding cattle in the rain in the Bear Paw Mountains near Chinook was the overall winner in fedaration's international contest in 2016.

Klassy said that, although the annual competition has been running for more than 20 years, his 2016 award was the first time a photographer from the United States has won an award from the federation's Star Prize for Agricultural Photography contest since 2004.

He said he found out last week that he won the award when a friend and freelance photographer from Canada sent him a message on Twitter from Pretoria.

A delegation of American agriculture journalists and editors accepted the award on Klassy's behalf.

He said he was out driving around southern Chouteau County a few years ago when he saw the scene photographed in his winning entry.

"The sunlight was beautiful that morning. And when I saw the strip stripes of alfalfa and wheat on the Charles Davis farm and ranch outside of Geraldine, I knew I had a chance to make a great photo-graph." Klassy said. "The rocky Highwood Mountains over the horizon added to the flavor of the photograph, and I was very happy with the results."

In The International Federation of Agriculture Journalists' competition, photographers compete in three categories - people, production, and nature/landscape - from which an overall winner is selected. Klassy's photograph of the fields near Geraldine was selected by the judges as the winner of the nature and landscape category and it was one of three finalists for Photo of the Year among entries from over 30 countries.

A photo by Australian photographer Jacqui Bateman, of a man shearing sheep in the nude, was named the overall winner from among the three finalists.

Klassy specializes in farm and ranch photography and making travel-related photos of Montana. He was recently selected as a "Montana Treasured Artist" by the state of Montana. His photos have been published by American Cowboy, Montana Magazine, People, Popular Photography, Sports Illustrated, Western Horseman and many other publications, websites and books.

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Online: The International Federation of Agrigulture Journalists: http://ifaj.org/

Todd Klassy Farm & Ranch Photography: http://www.toddklassy.com