The recently discovered \gamma -ray binary 1FGL J1018.6–5856 has a proposed optical/near-infrared ( OIR ) counterpart 2MASS 10185560–5856459 . We present Strömgren photometry of this star to investigate its photometric variability and measure the reddening and distance to the system . We find that the \gamma -ray binary has E ( B - V ) = 1.34 \pm 0.04 and d = 5.4 ^ { +4.6 } _ { -2.1 } kpc . . While E ( B - V ) is consistent with X-ray observations of the neutral hydrogen column density , the distance is somewhat closer than some previous authors have suggested .