No one could understand why Steve Jobs was such a fanatic for quality.
Beyond what was reasonable.
Beyond what was cost-effective.
I think it can be explained by what was on the walls of his bedroom.
He had just two things in there, apart from the bed.
A photograph of Albert Einstein.
A photograph of Guru Mahara-Ji.
These represented the two main influences in his life.
The technology of the west.
The philosophy of the east.
And he was extreme in his adherence to both.

It dates from his childhood experience.
Steve Jobs’ father was a craftsman.
In their garage he would restore cars.
Every part had to be perfect, whether you could see it or not.
Steve asked his father why he took such trouble.
The car would work just as well whether the unseen parts were clean or dirty.
His father explained that’s the way a craftsman works.
He does it for himself.
To know he’s done a perfect job.
If a craftsman is making a piece of furniture he doesn’t skimp, he doesn’t use cheap wood on the part that goes against the wall, where no one can see it.
Because the craftsman will know it’s there.
And he’ll always know he did a shoddy job.
And, of course, it’s exactly the same with Zen.
Whatever job you do, you do it the best you possibly can.
Because that is how you hold your life.
If we try to do a cheap job where no one can see, if we try to get away with things, if we cheat.
Then that is how we hold our life, and that becomes our life.
We can’t do a bad job only in one place.
What we do permeates everything we do.
There’s an old joke about two tramps who find a saucepan of soup with a dog turd in it.
The first tramp says “What a shame, shall we throw it away?”
The other tramp says “No, just eat the soup where the turd hasn’t been.”
The joke is, of course, you can’t.
Because it’s polluted all the soup.
That’s a good metaphor for the Zen way of life.
You can’t get away with anything, because it pollutes your life.
Which is why Steve Jobs was fanatical about every single detail of every single product.
He wasn’t working to a timesheet.
He wasn’t deciding how many hours could be profitably allocated to a job.
But, after Steve Jobs was forced out of Apple the first time, John Sculley from Pepsi took over.
He was a bookkeeper by training, and tried to run Apple accordingly.
That’s how he managed to take the company to near bankruptcy.
He thought constantly cutting costs was the way to maximise profit.
By making existing products cheaper, instead of making great products
Until eventually no one wanted to buy Apple products anymore.
And, when Apple was dead in the water, Steve Jobs was brought back.
With the crazy idea that quality counted more than cost.
With the crazy idea that people wanted better products, not just cheaper products.
With the crazy idea that doing a great job came first,
Totally unreasonable, totally against conventional wisdom.
And in fifteen years, with that totally crazy idea, Steve Jobs took Apple from near-bankruptcy to the most valuable company in the world.

For me, Steve Jobs demonstrates the old maxim.
“If you want to pick the fruit, you’ve got to water the tree.”

Luckily the weather held – no rain and not to breezy – so was good for getting the camera out.

These are my favourites from the evening – both of the fireworks and the Ferris Wheel.

Click on the thumbnails to view larger.

Get your kit out

… from Zoom in Photography on Twitter

Dandelion outside

I was out the other week taking photos of Bluebells at Stoke Wood and as well as taking macros of the flowers I had some fun with the dandelions too.

Using a very short depth of field enabled me to show the beauty of the dandelions both inside and outside.

Dandelion inside

This ‘dandelion inside’ shot also showed some cool ‘Lightroom Art’ when sharpening so I’ve included this as well

Lightroom Art of Dandelion Inside

Mum sitting on her nest

We were up at Sence Valley Forest Park in Leicestershire the other week with the OH’s folks. It wasn’t really a photography trip but was too good an opportunity to test the Canon 300mm f4 with the 1.4xII teleconverter.

This beautiful lady was sitting on her nest and thankfully the area was well fenced off to protect here.

And this I think was Dad.

Dad keeping a protective eye on things

When using the masking preview what you see is an almost x-ray/electron microscope look to the image which shows where the masking is being applied (white/grey) and where it is not (black).

For me, some of these preview images are almost art in themselves. Have a look at the examples below (from yesterday’s macro shots) and see what you think.

Pretty awesome I think

All shots were taken with the Canon 5D Mark 2, Canon EF100mm USM Macro lens

Shot on a Canon EOS 5D Mark II at ISO400, f/4, 1/125 sec at 200mm

Some more from the walk around Worcester at the weekend. Plenty of street entertainment on offer. These guys were very good!

Shot on a Canon EOS 5D Mark II at ISO400, f/4, 1/160 sec at 70mm

Shot on a Canon EOS 5D Mark II at ISO400, f/4, 1/160 sec at 200mm

And this guy was making amazing music with a junk drum kit. Great stuff.

Shot on a Canon EOS 5D Mark II at ISO200, f/5.6, 1/160 sec at 67mm

Shot on a Canon EOS 5D Mark II at ISO200, f/4, 1/320 sec at 106mm

Shot on a Canon EOS 5D Mark II at ISO200, f/4, 1/200 sec at 200mm

Shot on a Canon EOS 5D Mark II at ISO200, f/5.6, 1/250 sec at 105mm

Shot on a Canon EOS 5D Mark II at ISO200, f/5.6, 1/250 sec at 105mm

Shot on a Canon EOS 5D Mark II at ISO200, f/5.6, 1/200 sec at 105mm

Shot on a Canon EOS 5D Mark II at ISO200, f/5.6, 1/200 sec at 105mm