Taylor Swift Is Now Crediting Photographers

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After at least one photographer criticized Taylor Swift for posting photos she didn’t have the rights to without attribution to her Instagram page, Swift now appears to be putting up photos with image credits.

On Tuesday, Jezebel pointed out that Swift had been called out for the type of contracts she has photographers sign to shoot her shows—photographer Jason Sheldon said it was the same type of exploitation Swift had been accusing Apple Music of when they announced they’d be streaming music for free for the first three months of their service without paying the musicians. In that same piece, we reported that another photographer, Josh Johnson, had criticized Swift for reposting a photo he’d taken of her show on her Instagram and other accounts without crediting him.

But as Johnson points out, on Wednesday, Swift performed in Manchester, England. Tumblr user Thirteenlegohouses, aka a young woman named Becky Byng, attended the show, posting this photo to her Instagram and Tumblr.

Not long after, Swift reposted the photo on her own Tumblr, as well as on Instagram and Twitter, with the caption, “MANCHESTER!!! Source: Thirteenlegohouses on tumblr.”

Byng seems pleased, to put it lightly; she reblogged the photo a few times and wrote a new post that reads just, “Legitimately shaking.” She also made reference to a tweet Swift had sent about how she’s a “lurker” with regards to her fans (something anyone who follows her on Tumblr or read Jack Dickey’s Time profile of Swift from last year knows)—a message that inadvertently revealed how Swift keeps track of her favorite internet stans. Byng wrote, “Life goal: be on Taylor Swift’s camera roll.”

Byng’s not the only one to get the Swift seal of approval and absolutely love it. Swift reposted a photo from Whitney Roaderick on Instagram from an earlier leg of the tour Wednesday as well, though, funnily enough, Roaderick didn’t actually take this photo; as she noted on Instagram, “It’s from the tour book!!” (You can see that the picture is a close-up of a photo included in the 1989 World Tour book that fans of Taylor’s can presumably purchase at her shows.) Roaderick’s bio is now “They are the hunters, we are the foxes and we run. Taylor gave me a shout out June 24, 2015 and I died. Pics are being posted from my grave. ”

Roaderick also put up two ‘Grams of herself freaking out, with captions like:

“And I don’t know how it gets better than this” @taylorswift thank you so much!!! And also thank you to everyone commenting and liking and freaking the heck out with me!!!!! I’d just like to say that I have no idea how this actually just happened, I never in a million years thought it would. I have tried on tumblr and twitter a lot but I’d kind of given up hope. DON’T. She will notice you and when she does you will die.

And:

THANK YOU SO MUCH@taylorswift I WAS JUST SITTING HERE TRYING TO BUY A SWIMSUIT AND YOU JUST DROPPED IN AND KILLED ME OH MY GOD!!! I LOVE YOU SO MUCH AND I CAN’T WAIT TO SEE YOU ON OCTOBER 24TH AT THE GEORGIA DOME!!! MY BIRTHDAY IS JULY 7TH SO THIS WAS THE PERFECT EARLY BIRTHDAY PRESENT!!!

The comments on both her account and Byng’s are full of excited congratulations from other Swift fans.

So it seems like all’s well that end’s well, in the case of Taylor Swift v. Her Rabid Fans: They get the attention they want, and she gets even more love. Win-win.


Contact the author at [email protected].

Image via Becky Byng/Instagram and Taylor Swift/Instagram

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