FARGO — Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce and pop megastar Taylor Swift walked side-by-side holding hands after the team’s Christmas Day home loss against the Las Vegas Raiders, an image that Kansas City Star photojournalist Nick Wagner captured.

For Wagner, it’s the favorite Swift photo he’s snapped since Swift started dating Kelce and has become a regular at Kansas City football games.

“It’s like what a high school sweetheart relationship would be after a big high school game, going home together hand-in-hand,” said Wagner, who graduated from Ada-Borup (Minn.) High School in 2013.

Wagner has been full-time on the Chiefs beat since training camp and also covered the team last season. He is set to cover his second consecutive Super Bowl at 5:30 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 11, when the Chiefs play the San Francisco 49ers at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas. Kansas City is the defending Super Bowl champion.

“I do have to remind myself, slow down a little bit and realize how far you’ve come and appreciate that fact and appreciate everyone who helped me get to where I am,” said the 29-year-old Wagner, who interned at The Forum in 2014-2015.

Since he joined the Kansas City Star staff in November of 2022, Wagner only covered a few regular-games last season, but he was on the sidelines for the entire playoff run to the Super Bowl championship. This season the team’s journey to the Super Bowl has the added Taylor Swift effect.

The first game she attended was in Week 3 of the regular season against the Chicago Bears on Sept. 24, 2023, at Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City.

“It’s something else that you have to keep in mind because there is value to the paper as far as getting visuals of her arriving, being there and cheering and leaving the stadium with Travis,” Wagner said. “It’s just another wrinkle.”

Wagner added there are challenges in having to devote some attention to Swift on game days.

“It’s your perspective on it,” Wagner said. “It can get exhausting when you are there on the Chiefs beat and want to cover the team and have to shift focus away from the team and focus on a pop star, but she’s also the most popular celebrity in the world. It is exciting and cool to see her, the first couple times I saw her in person, there was some kind of (being) starstruck.”

Wagner said he’s usually assigned with getting photos of Swift entering and leaving the stadium on games in which she attends. During the game, she’s usually in a private suite so there are limitations for getting photos of Swift during the games.

Wagner captured images of an animated Swift reacting to a Kelce touchdown catch during Kansas City’s division round road victory against the Buffalo Bills.

“That was shot from the entire opposite end of the stadium basically,” Wagner said.

While Wagner has to be mindful of Swift, the game is most important for him, especially on Super Bowl Sunday.

“Game action is paramount to me,” Wagner said. “I don’t care about anything else. I want to shoot game action, I want to shoot the players. If there is a lull in the game or something and I point my camera towards her suite and she’s doing something interesting, then I’ll shoot it. I’m focused on the game, it’s the Super Bowl.”

After Kansas City’s road victory against Baltimore in the AFC Championship game, Swift came down to the field in the postgame and kissed Kelce. That was an image that Wagner was unable to capture since he was focused on the awards podium.

“You can imagine how crazy the scrum was,” Wagner said. “I was shooting the podium. You kind of have to be on the Taylor beat if you’re going to get an image of her because otherwise you’re going to be blocked out. … If you’re going to shoot her, you’re going to have to abandon whatever you are doing, you are going to have to commit to her 100%.”

Wagner said by the time he got over to Kelce and Swift, he ended up not filing the any of the frames he snapped.

“It wasn’t the picture,” Wagner said. “The picture was them kissing.”

Wagner’s favorite images from the AFC championship game was when Kansas City cornerback L’Jarius Snead forced Baltimore receiver Zay Flowers to fumble inches before he crossed the goal line. Chiefs cornerback Trent McDuffie recovered the fumble in the end zone with Kansas City holding a 17-7 lead early in the fourth quarter. The Chiefs earned a 17-10 victory.

“The Chiefs defense this year has been incredible,” Wagner said. “It was kind of poetic with how it happened.”

Wagner said other than hearing a few murmurs in the crowd of fans talking about Swift being in the stadium, the atmosphere hasn’t been too different for the games she attended. Games at Arrowhead Stadium were already a big-time event.

“I think anyone who goes to the game is kind of there football first, Taylor second,” Wagner said. “I think it’s still game first.”

Wagner arrived in Las Vegas on Monday to cover multiple events leading up to the big game. Having covered the Super Bowl last year gives him some familiarity with what’s in store for the week. He will be again photographing the game from the field.

“This is still awesome and still amazing to be able to have this privilege, but I’m a little bit more prepared and know what to expect,” Wagner said.

Wagner credits John Millea, the senior content creator at the Minnesota State High School League, as one of his key influences early in his journalism career. Wagner was part of the high school league’s student media program, which started in 2011 and lasted around a decade, according to Millea.

“He could write, he could certainly take photos,” Millea said. “I don’t know that I’m surprised, but it’s amazing to see, ‘Hey, look at these Taylor Swift photos going viral,’ Nick took them. … His sports photos in general are phenomenal.”

Wagner said Millea is the reason he attended a sports journalism camp at St. Thomas. That led Wagner to Western Kentucky where he graduated from in 2017. Millea said one of the first meetings he had for the MSHSL’s student media program was at Ada-Borup High School, and Wagner was at that presentation with a handful of other kids.

“It’s really cool to think about that moment back then in Ada and then what he’s doing now and what he’s done,” said Millea, who worked at the Star Tribune for 20 years prior to moving to the high school league in 2010. “He’s just so talented. … It’s an art and he’s an artist for sure.”