When Taylor Swift came to Australia, the country stopped and listened.
Sydney event photographer for Publishd James Gourley was on hand at Accor Stadium to document the first night of Taylor Swift’s 4 night Sydney residency, which saw the biggest run of shows Stadium Australia has seen since the 2000 Olympics. He was shooting editorially for international media distribution through Publishd’s partner network, Shutterstock Editorial.
Pre-Production and live delivery
In order to ensure he had the right equipment and captured the perfect moments out of the time limited opportunity, as editorial live music photography opportunities are usually limited to the first three songs of a performance, James researched Taylor’s meticulously choreographed set to identify the key moments to capture in the first songs.
He brought two Nikon Z9’s, a 24-70mm, 70-200mm and a 400mm f2.8 lens, to ensure that he could perfectly capture every moment of the ten or so minutes he had access to.
Upon checking in at the stadium, and after waiting for a lightning storm to pass over (which unfortunately meant the cancellation of Sabrina Carpenter’s support slot), he, and a select few other photographers were guided through past the 80,000 fans to the pit of the massive stage set to capture the most anticipated gig of the year.
Celebrity Spotting
Moments before the start of the show, the crowd noticed as Travis Kelce and some other celebrities including Katy Perry, Rita Ora and Baz Luhrmann all arrived to watch Taylor’s set. Knowing of the global news interest in Travis and Taylor’s relationship, James shot a few frames as the countdown to the start of the set began.
Showtime
As the music began, James immediately turned his focus to Taylor, following her as she burst from a petals to open with Miss Americana and the Heartbreak Prince, before following straight into a hugely energetic performance of Cruel Summer which saw Swift parade around the catwalk area, engaging the crowd and keeping the photographers on their toes, before moving back to the main stage to climb a three storey set in a rendition of The Man.
Post Production and delivery
Immediately after shooting the first three songs of the gig, he downloaded, culled, edited and delivered hundreds of photos, from thousands for global distribution whilst Swift was still performing. “I usually like to limit the amount of photos I take as I know it’ll slow down the editing process later, but when you’ve got the worlds biggest celebrity performing in front of you, it’s hard not to get a bit carried away!”
After he sent his images, unfortunately that was the end of his night – “I wish I could have stayed to watch the rest of the gig, as I’d tried for months to get tickets, but like a lot of people in Sydney, I wasn’t successful, so three songs is all I got to see!”.
Usage
Over the following days, weeks and months, James’ photos have been used around the world to accompany hundreds of news articles about Swift and Kelce, with Travis Kelce and his brother even referencing the photos on his podcast when talking about his fashion choices!
Would you like to get into music photography? Do you have any questions about what its like working at a show of this scale? Reach out in the comments section below!
Want to see more of James’ work? Here are his links:
www.gourley.photo – Personal Portfolio
www.publishd.com.au – His Australian Commercial, Event and Film & TV Publicity Photography Agency