The light Albert Watson shapes - the story behind the image of Steve Jobs — Transcript

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1. 0:06I was involved in this shoot for a magazine.
2. 0:09Photographing the most powerful people in America
3. 0:12and one of the people we had to photograph with Steve Jobs.
4. 0:15We had him for an hour.
5. 0:16Nine o'clock he was due to turn up and he turned up at one minute to nine.
6. 0:20And just before he arrived the PR person came up to me and said
7. 0:23"I just want to let you know Steve hates photographers"
8. 0:26and I took a chance on something, I said "Mr Jobs, I have some good news for you"
9. 0:31I said "I believe I have you for an hour". He said "You do".
10. 0:34I said "I think I can get this done in half an hour"
11. 0:37and he just looked at me like I've even had a Christmas present or something.
12. 0:40He said "Oh, my god, that would be great. I've got so much to do today".
13. 0:44And I thought well why don't I just approach it like it's a passport picture?
14. 0:47so that I had a little bit of fall-off. Shoot it against white.
15. 0:51give it a little bit of graphics but to keep it very very simple.
16. 0:55I said "I'd like you to just slightly lean forward towards the camera
17. 1:00I would like you to imagine that you're across a table from four or five people
18. 1:04who don't agree with you, but you know you're right".
19. 1:08and he said "Easy for me, I do that every day"
20. 1:10and then he just leaned forward and kind of looked. He just put his thumb here
21. 1:15and he just he gave a little smile, but it wasn't smile. He was like
22. 1:19"don't question what I'm doing".
23. 1:21He was actually out of there in about 20 minutes
24. 1:24so I did a cut from the knee up and then a close up, that close up shot.
25. 1:29When he was leaving, the polaroid was there and he said "Can I have this?", I said "Sure"
26. 1:32and he said "That's maybe the best picture ever taken of me"
27. 1:35so I thought at this point he was just being very polite
28. 1:38but then I got a call years later from California
29. 1:42saying "I need that photograph you did of Steve, if you still have it."
30. 1:45I said "Of course I have it".
31. 1:46We sent it out there and that night I actually went to Lincoln Center
32. 1:49and my phone beeped and then up on my phone came
33. 1:53he had died that afternoon
34. 1:54that photo was there on the website, so he did like in the end.