Photographing the most powerful people in America

and one of the people we had to photograph with Steve Jobs.

We had him for an hour.

Nine o'clock he was due to turn up and he turned up at one minute to nine.

And just before he arrived the PR person came up to me and said

"I just want to let you know Steve hates photographers"

and I took a chance on something, I said "Mr Jobs, I have some good news for you"

I said "I believe I have you for an hour". He said "You do".

I said "I think I can get this done in half an hour"

and he just looked at me like I've even had a Christmas present or something.

He said "Oh, my god, that would be great. I've got so much to do today".

And I thought well why don't I just approach it like it's a passport picture?

so that I had a little bit of fall-off. Shoot it against white.

give it a little bit of graphics but to keep it very very simple.

I said "I'd like you to just slightly lean forward towards the camera

I would like you to imagine that you're across a table from four or five people

who don't agree with you, but you know you're right".

and he said "Easy for me, I do that every day"

and then he just leaned forward and kind of looked. He just put his thumb here

and he just he gave a little smile, but it wasn't smile. He was like

"don't question what I'm doing".

He was actually out of there in about 20 minutes

so I did a cut from the knee up and then a close up, that close up shot.

When he was leaving, the polaroid was there and he said "Can I have this?", I said "Sure"

and he said "That's maybe the best picture ever taken of me"

so I thought at this point he was just being very polite

but then I got a call years later from California

saying "I need that photograph you did of Steve, if you still have it."

I said "Of course I have it".

We sent it out there and that night I actually went to Lincoln Center

and my phone beeped and then up on my phone came

he had died that afternoon

that photo was there on the website, so he did like in the end.