In 1992, while working on assignment for the Spanish-language magazine Más, photographer John Dyer captured a star on the rise. Fresh off the success of her breakthrough album Entre a Mi Mundo, 21-year-old singer Selena Quintanilla was poised to take her regional success in Texas and Northern Mexico to the next level. Dressed in her signature bustier, gold hoops, and black high-waisted pants, the Texan took to the red curtain backdrop, basking in the glow of a spotlight with the same magnetism she radiated on stage. In that moment, it became immediately clear to Dyer why people were drawn to her.
Just two years later, when Dyer was on assignment for Texas Monthly, Selena was a Grammy Award-winning artist who had shattered sales records for Tejano artists; her 1994 album, Amor Prohibido, reached quadruple platinum status. When Dyer met with Selena this time, at San Antonio’s Majestic Theatre, she carried a subdued energy with her and seemed visibly exhausted from constant touring.
Now, 25 years after her sudden death, a selection of photos from Selena’s shoots with Dyer are being shown publicly for the first time, as part of the McNay Art Museum’s “Selena Forever/Siempre Selena” exhibit. On view through July 5th, the photos were originally meant to be part of the museum’s current “Fashion Nirvana” exhibit, but curators decided to expand it into its own show once they saw the images.
Five photographs (as well as a digital slideshow) are exhibited inside the Pat and Tom Frost Octagon—an intimate part of the museum that feels almost like a chapel erected in the late singer’s honor. “When I walked in one day, I met a woman who told me she couldn’t even look at one of the photos anymore because it brought up too many emotions,” Dyer said. “There were people in tears the day it opened. There’s still so much emotion there all these years later, and I can’t explain that. Selena represents something very powerful to a lot of people.”
Dyer gave Texas Monthly a behind-the-scenes glimpse of what it was like to work with the Queen of Tejano.
"When you’re a photographer, you always have to take some time to get to know your subject and make them feel at ease," he says. "There’s a ritual that happens there as you’re getting to know each other and finding a level of comfort to get the job done. Selena was extremely comfortable and confident in herself—not at all camera shy. We got working together very quickly and shot for probably eight or nine hours, but it felt like time just flew by. She was full of life, an absolute free spirit who was just funny and enthusiastic."
"Originally, we wanted to get some shots of her without makeup, and I don’t recall who insisted that it wasn’t going to happen, but the implication was that she not appear in public without a certain kind of makeup look on," Dyer recalls. "I kind of regretted not pushing back more. This shoot was in 1994, and by that time she had been through the celebrity meat grinder. She had just come from a couple of days of shooting and I could tell she was just exhausted. Those photos show a much more pensive, quiet Selena."
"This is rare, but almost every shot I got was a keeper," Dyer says. "There are times that you shoot and you wonder if you have anything by the end, but it wasn’t like that. I got everything because of how incredibly photogenic she was. Because of her performing, she was very aware of how she came across. The camera just loved her."
"She drove up to my studio in a little red hatchback," he remembers. "She must have had every outfit she owned in there, because it took three of us to bring everything in. It was different hats, bustiers, and boots, and I just kind of let her do her thing and run with it. She had designed a lot of the outfits herself, so I let her direct that part."
"We were on the mezzanine at the Majestic, one of my favorite places in the whole world," he says. "There’s a beautiful light coming through a stained glass window. I was shooting on film, so I chose daylight. I knew the shots would be very warm, but there was a blue light coming through the stained glass—I think it added a lot."
