“Steve didn’t want the photographer.”
Steven Levythe American reporter who for years had privileged access to the Apple co-founder’s keynotes, remembers well the May day twenty-five years ago when, before his eyes, Jobs he transformed into “Bad Steve”.
“It was May 1998 and Jobs was about to launch the iMac. The computer was supposed to be unveiled in August, exactly 25 years ago – wrote Levy for Wired to celebrate this very anniversary -. AND Jobs had chosen mewho was then working for Newsweek, to get an exclusive first look and spend time with him as he geared up for launch.”
But Jobs flew into a rage when he learned the name of the photographer chosen by the magazine.
Moshe Brakha he was a Los Angeles photographer respected for his shots of artists like Joni Mitchell and the Ramones. Jobs, however, had never heard of him and he didn’t trust at all of his abilities.
The co-founder of Apple had every reason to be nervous. The launch of the iMac G3 was to be a key step in the relaunch of the Cupertino company. As soon as a year earlier Apple was on the verge of bankruptcy. It was thought to be sold to Sun Microsystems. The value of a share was less than $10.
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Levy, today, well describes the anxiety experienced by Apple employees twenty-five years ago, at the launch of the first iMac: “After driving his Mercedes up to the facility that was hosting the event, I witnessed an unpleasant moment where Steve chastised one of his employees during rehearsals for failing to achieve an adequate level of ‘Job perfection'”.
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Even Brakha, during the shooting for the service of Newsweek, risked the wrath of Jobs. But then the photographer managed to tame the entrepreneur “in the same way that a Yellowstone ranch herd tames a wild stallion”. Levy’s metaphor gives an idea of what the situation was that day.
In the end Brakha unexpectedly won over Jobs. And Levy assures that Steve’s smile, in the iconic shot of him holding an iMac G3 between his legs, was genuine. Certainly Apple liked that photo so much that it wanted to buy the rights later.
Brakha’s shot actually synthesizes Jobs’ style – with his recognizable and essential look made of jeans and black turtleneck – and that of the company he was leading at the time. The first iMac – designed by a young Jony Ive – was not only a commercial success, but also has laid the foundation for the “whole-widget” philosophy that Steve Jobs dreamed of. It was an innovative approach to the production of computers and other devices: Apple would design them from scratch, without using parts from other companies, to have a total control over hardware and software and their integration.
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In short, twenty-five years ago, Brakha succeeded where others failed miserably. Steve Jobs was in fact allergic to photographers, except perhaps for Norman Seeff – who in 1984 portrayed him with a legendary Macintosh, also in this case between his legs and Diane Walkerthe photographer of Time which also immortalized the entrepreneur’s private life. And who gave Jobs’ fans the symbolic photo of his love for minimalism.
All the others didn’t have it easy. While Albert Watson was preparing to shoot one of the most iconic portraits of Jobs – the one that ended up on the cover of the biography signed by Walter Isaacson – received a warning from Apple PR: “Be careful, Steve doesn’t like photographers”.
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