OPINION|
Taylor Swift and I are huddled over my laptop as she scrolls through thousands of songs in my iTunes library.
“You’re a deep track guy,” she says as she studies her options.
It’s June of 2010 and I am assisting at a one-hour photo session for my employer, USA TODAY, that has taken me more than a month to arrange. Always multitasking, Taylor has claimed the job of D.J. and is looking for music to keep her energy level up. Not that it’s a problem for the soon-to-be megastar.
Arriving more than an hour early with a small entourage (publicist, hair and makeup, wardrobe, one man security team, and her ever-present mother, Andrea), Taylor spent her waiting time wedged into a visiting team locker at LP Stadium answering fans’ posts on her various social media accounts.
It’s a scene that is in my top 10 list of photographs that I failed to make. Taylor, if you ever want to recreate this moment, there’s a guy in Kansas City who could probably help make it happen.
Staff photographer Bob Deutsch and I are completing an evening of photographing that night’s performers at the CMA Fest for future stories. Taylor is not performing that year, and because of that, my initial request to use our makeshift studio space for the photo session with her has been rebuffed by the Country Music Association. Proving the power that she already has, an exchange of phone calls between Swift’s manager and CMA executives gets us grudging approval to use the tiny space.
As a further stick in the CMA’s eye, Swift will take over Nashville’s downtown Bridgestone Arena two days later, in a personal appearance for a marathon 13-hour meet and greet with thousands of her fans.
This is the third time Bob and I have worked with young Miss Swift, and we are well aware she is a photographer’s dream.
The first occasion was in 2008 at the same four-day festival of country music in Nashville. Swift, along with besties Kellie Pickler and Julianne Hough, spent each night filming intros and bits to be used on an ABC special at the end of the summer. All three are young, blonde and funny and we have them booked for a group photo. The photos are fun and mostly silly as they clown around and play off each other.
As they get ready to leave, I remember that our boss asked me to get a photo of Bob and I “looking like you’re actually working.” The boss always seemed to consider these trips junkets. I quickly explain the ask, and the young women happily oblige.
We all exchange thank you’s, and Bob and I start looking at the photos on my computer. A few minutes later Paula, Taylor’s publicist at the time, returns for a favor.
“Taylor was asking if she could come back by herself later tonight?”
This is a few months before Swift’s second album, “Fearless” was to be released, and Swift is turning out to be someone to watch. My answer is a quick yes. Taylor proves to be a dream subject. Having done some early-career modeling, the 17-year-old has moves and knows the camera loves her.
I have known and worked with Bob for decades. His patter speech during portrait sessions is so familiar that to this day I sometimes use it myself.
“Good, great, not so great… sexy!”
“Bob, she’s 17,” I stage whisper.
Taylor blushes and laughs and her mother gives us a look.
Back to 2010. Taylor is now 19 and her third album, “Speak Now” is due in the fall. She has already won CMA awards, MTV video awards and Grammys. She has hosted and performed on Saturday Night Live. She is red hot, the “it girl” of the moment. Getting an exclusive one-hour photo session with her in advance of her third album is a big deal. The fact that her team asked us is, in my mind, even bigger.
Besides assessing the music on my iPod, what does Taylor want to talk about?
“Look at this” she says, thrusting her hair and makeup person’s phone at me, (and I’m paraphrasing now — it’s been 13 years), “Where is this cuteness in my life?!?”
She is showing me a photo of the woman’s infant. I make my usual joke about all babies looking like Winston Churchill. Taylor smiles, but for a moment is very still as she looks at the photo. It’s one of those moments she will become known for, her ability to be completely focused on something while all around her is controlled chaos.
The photo session meets and exceeds all of Bob and my expectations. I am asked by the wardrobe manager to help pick her outfits(!) and Bob keeps his patter running. The hour flys by. The next to last outfit is a stunner. I don’t have the fashion knowledge to describe it, but I do know that tall women with wavy blonde hair and bright red lipstick look great in black, especially when it’s tight and bares their arms and shoulders. She positively smolders.
One more outfit. We don’t really want to stop as her publicist calls time, and I suggest one more. Taylor seems up for it but the publicist’s answer is “no.” Bob and I take each other’s photos with the starlet, who poses for our lifelong-lasting “That’s you? With her!” keepsakes.
Thursday afternoon, October 21, 2010, and the story is scheduled for the next day’s USA TODAY Life Weekend section cover. I sweated over the edit, mostly because there are so many great photos to choose from. A final selection is made, the page is designed and then sent to satellite, destined for print sites across the country.
My phone rings. It’s Paula the publicist, “We’d like it if you didn’t use the photo of Taylor in the black outfit. It’s not the image we want for her right now”
“Too late,” I answer.
Inez van Lamsweerde, one half of the team Inez and Vinoodh, who photographed Swift for Time magazine’s Person of the Year cover story, was quoted in PetaPixel as saying of one of their pictures, “I felt that there is something there in her body position that’s very powerful and strong. Her expression and the way she looks has this old Hollywood glamor but underneath, there’s so much power in her stance.”
Sorry Inez, but Bob Deutsch and USA TODAY beat you to it 13 years ago. And 13 has always been T’s favorite number.
Editor’s note: Jym Wilson counts himself as a casual Taylor Swift fan whose favorite album by her is “Folklore.” While he has never seen her perform in person, he is looking forward to watching “The Eras Tour” concert film in the comfort of his home when it is released on a streaming platform.
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