Play Meter

• I really tried." My name is Mike Maki. I'm a commercial photographer. I've shot just about every kind of product you can think of, over the years, including jukeboxes. For the first time in my career, I ran into a product that I couldn't make look better in a photo. Worse yet, I couldn't make it look as good as it does in real life. Humbling. I've built a reputation for making my client's product look especially good in photography. It's really not that hard to make something look better in photos than it does in real life. I could tell you all the technical reasons why I couldn't do it ... all the refractions, reflections, light emission directions, etc. But it makes no difference. No photographer could do it. This jukebox can never look as good to the camera's eye as it will the human eye. So I didn't think much of it when NSM asked me to shqot their new "Performer-Grand"™ jukebox. They wanted photos for their ad. This ad. They had the copy all written, a good headline ... everything. All they needed was a shot or two that "made it look as pretty as it really is", according to their president, lnsta-Matic child's play. I bid the job at two days studio time. At the end of a full week, with every camera lens and light I own scattered around the studio, and having tried every photography trick I know ... I gave up. I know nothing about jukeboxes. This thing may not even work, for all I know. But I'll tell you this. There's no jukebox that I've ever seen anywhere that looks even near as beautiful. And any photo you see isn't even getting close. Believe me, I tried. I really tried. Mike Maki Commercial Photographer Maki & Smith , Inc.