I am probably the only one who notices or cares, but there is a particular stock image of the original Apple Macintosh computer that shows up multiple times in any search related to the first Mac.
I notice because I shot that image.
And because I hate it.
A terrible copy of a copy of a copy of a Macintosh photo I shot for Apple in 1985.
Original use of the image in The Macintosh Office brochure, 1985.
It’s actually a section of a larger double-page spread that includes mutiple devices, and was use in a brochure promoting “The Macintosh Office”, Apple’s short-lived campaign to grow their business market with a networking system of Macs, Lisas, servers, and printers.
I dislike the photo for a few reasons:
First, it is not my best product lighting - with flat, overhead light instead of the more elegant side light I tended to use more regularly.
Second - although the the external drive is in this photo because it is integral to the “Macintosh Office” system - it distracts from the design of the Mac itself, so it’s not ideal for a photo used so often as an iconic image of the first Macintosh.
Finally, there’s a weird reddish stain just above the hard drive that must have been on the brochure page when the originator of this cropped image scanned it.
A stain on my photography.
I know I am being a bit obsessive, but could they not have bothered to either find a cleaner brochure, or digitally remove the smudge before using the image for whatever it was that this first person used it for? Now the only version of this image that everyone sees has that stupid stain! (Can you tell I am the photographer?)
David Pogue’s new book, Apple: The First 50 Years, features several of my Apple photographs from the 1980s.
Thankfully, David Pogue, author of the new book, “Apple: The First 50 Years” was enlightened enough to choose one of my other, more elegantly lit (and clean!) images to represent the first Mac. It’s on page 131.
Thank you, David.