Chris Maxwell photography California weddings

[SunnyAndrsn]

Why can't he ever take a picture of the bride where you can actually see the details of the gown? He does those stupid on-the-hanger shots that are never crisp/clear either.

For that matter, the pics of the men are always better than of the women. Even with the bride/groom couple poses, he always stages the men to be the primary focus. It's misogyny overload for me. ETA: Why can't he get a picture of brides that shows details of their dresses? You can see every freakin' detail of the men's tuxes, but can't managed to photograph a white dress to show the detailing on it?

RE: The Josh/Lexi photos--her dress looked like it was meant to be slightly off the shoulder, but of course has the obligatory modesty panels sewn in. Why not just find a different dress? The modesty add-in was poorly sewn and ruined it.

[Bethella]

Why can't he ever take a picture of the bride where you can actually see the details of the gown? He does those stupid on-the-hanger shots that are never crisp/clear either.

For that matter, the pics of the men are always better than of the women. Even with the bride/groom couple poses, he always stages the men to be the primary focus. It's misogyny overload for me.

RE: The Josh/Lexi photos--her dress looked like it was meant to be slightly off the shoulder, but of course has the obligatory modesty panels sewn in. Why not just find a different dress? The modesty add-ins ruined it.

I think Christopher is afraid that looking at the bride will stir up unrighteous desires, so he closes his eyes, randomly points the camera in her direction and takes the picture. :lol:

[nelliebelle1197]

Only 26 weddings to his credit in 10-1/2 years. What experience! I'm seriously impressed.

In addition to plastic storage bins, Chris could instruct hopeful future photographers how to leave in all props and people used for lighting effects on the bride and groom's photo page (19th counting from the bottom on Rebecca and Moses' wedding). Perhaps he hasn't covered cropping yet:

To be fair, not all his weddings are on the site. I know there are several others, including an Asian couple, that aren't there. I am assuming this is representative work from clients who don't mind. Also, the family photography page does seem to have more rotation going on. The products and architecture pages never update.

[nelliebelle1197]

That right there is what has everyone speculating about just where they make their real money. There is no way the photo biz or the now-defunct home improvement biz are paying the bills because they just don't have enough contracts.

Every so often there's mention of Nathan (and Christopher too? I forget) doing actual IT consulting for companies, I suppose that might be part of it.

Though on the other hand years ago they had some sample web page stuff up and it was horrible - just someone's implementation of "look ma, I can make a javascript calculator with no CSS!" type thing.

ETA: From what we see of the home improvements they do on their own houses, I think they could easily make money doing that (or starting a rental empire, for that matter). Perhaps they do more of this than they let on, and just don't blog about it, but I don't know. Probably not the rental empire though because if they were doing that, people here sniffing around the property records would find them owning lots more houses.

But either way - we know there's more to their lives than they see fit to post to the blog. So it's possible they have some sort of more mainstream gig that they just never, ever write about.

That is an interesting thought on rental and/or house flipping. The properties could be held under a holding company or an LLC that we would have no way to find.

[16strong]

That is an interesting thought on rental and/or house flipping. The properties could be held under a holding company or an LLC that we would have no way to find.

Oh, I doubt it's that complicated. Seems to me it's as simple as "You're all going to hell-LC."

[salex]

That is an interesting thought on rental and/or house flipping. The properties could be held under a holding company or an LLC that we would have no way to find.

Business entities in Kansas have a Resident Agent-- by searching by person's name on the link on this page you can see a variety of names.

.kansas.gov/bess/flow/main?execution=e1s6

[nelliebelle1197]

The agent can be a company. Just put Inc. into the search box - he could have a whole layer of subterfuge. I doubt it but who knows? They are affording $300 rain coats with built in baby slings if they were poor!

[16strong]

Using the link, I found the following. Now I don't remember their middle names, so I couldn't pare the list down with that in mind.

I found a C. Maxwell Projects, LLC. Registered address is 14629 W 89TH, LENEXA, KS 66215. Lenexa is not far from Leavenworth. Formed in 2012. Still active.

A KJMM CAPITAL PARTNERS, LLC also with a C. Maxwell listed as resident agent. In Leawood, not far from Lenexa.

There's a K2J2 PROPERTIES, LLC, with a John C. Maxwell listed as the resident agent. Address is 3608 W 153RD STREET, LEAWOOD, KS 66224.

C. Maxwell Projects, LLC registered to a C. Maxwell in Lenexa. Active.

Communication Concepts, which I'm pretty sure is theirs and we already know about it. Registered to Stevehovah in Leavenworth.

There's also a Christopher Maxwell listed under a Captured Memories Photography, 2416 S. 15TH ST., LEAVENWORTH, KS 66048. However, this is business has been forfeited.

A dissolved Maxwell and Sons, LLC Leavenworth.

I also found Titus2. Still active, unfortunately. :lol:

[Black Aliss]

From what we see of the home improvements they do on their own houses, I think they could easily make money doing that (or starting a rental empire, for that matter). Perhaps they do more of this than they let on, and just don't blog about it, but I don't know. Probably not the rental empire though because if they were doing that, people here sniffing around the property records would find them owning lots more houses.

I don't see them doing rental property because of the inevitable conflict between their beliefs and Fair Housing laws. If you think Christopher's rules on whose weddings he will deign to photograph, imagine who Steve would consider to be a suitable tenant.

[salex]

Using the link, I found the following. Now I don't remember their middle names, so I couldn't pare the list down with that in mind.

I found a C. Maxwell Projects, LLC. Registered address is 14629 W 89TH, LENEXA, KS 66215. Lenexa is not far from Leavenworth. Formed in 2012. Still active.

A KJMM CAPITAL PARTNERS, LLC also with a C. Maxwell listed as resident agent. In Leawood, not far from Lenexa.

There's a K2J2 PROPERTIES, LLC, with a John C. Maxwell listed as the resident agent. Address is 3608 W 153RD STREET, LEAWOOD, KS 66224.

C. Maxwell Projects, LLC registered to a C. Maxwell in Lenexa. Active.

Communication Concepts, which I'm pretty sure is theirs and we already know about it. Registered to Stevehovah in Leavenworth.

There's also a Christopher Maxwell listed under a Captured Memories Photography, 2416 S. 15TH ST., LEAVENWORTH, KS 66048. However, this is business has been forfeited.

A dissolved Maxwell and Sons, LLC Leavenworth.

I also found Titus2. Still active, unfortunately. :lol:

The john c in Leawood appears to be married to a Karen Maxwell....

[PearlKrabs]

I love that one of his first pieces of advice is to lower their expectations. :lol:

[usmcmom]

Putting my mother of the bride hat on again...

Here are things I better not see when reviewing my daughter's wedding photos:

a fan

a bathroom

her gown hanging on a rolling clothing rack bought at Target

the parking lot

numerous photos of guests in church pews

more than one photo of the "get away" car

close up photos of anybody's dinner plate

Seriously, photography is expensive and families shouldn't pay for that kind of trash. It occurs to me that maybe Christopher knows he's bad at photographing people. Maybe that's why we see so many photos of parking lots and church buildings.

[16strong]

Salex, you're right. Some of these do seem to be owned by a Maxwell married to a Karen. Another thought- It's not common, but could they have registered their business in another state? They do live near the Missouri border.

[Myfanwy]

So he is writing a book on photography. Not surprising. They have figured out that they can write books on anything, give a Christian spin, and sell it to suckers. Ugh. Jesus would LOVE that, I'm sure.

Hint #434: Always take a few pictures with extreme tilt. This gives the viewer an unsettling sense of vertigo which they just might confuse with emotion.

Hint #752: Always take close ups of the wedding rings being held by the bride and by the groom. Don't bother focusing on the people. For some reason viewers just love pictures of the rings by themselves (after all we see enough of the bride and groom already.)

Hint # 929: Ask the groomsmen to jump up as high as possible as a group. This is a "dynamic" action shot. The viewer will love this because it looks fun and spontaneous. Note this only works with young, thin grooms. For fat, elderly grooms, omit.

Don't forget hint # 973: Always take a random photo of the carpark.

[Odd1Out]

His family and engagement photos on his website are definitely better than his wedding photography. He does do good silhouette photos.

I'm just wondering why there aren't rules for who he will take family or engagement photos of. In the family photos, all females are wearing skirts or dresses it seems. However, one hussy and her daughters are wearing sleeveless dresses. What amazes me is that the couples are all TOUCHING in the engagement photos. Why would he take pictures that allow that?? Shouldn't he have strict rules for engaged couples too?

[PennySycamore]

How dare you!! I'll have you know that that white, plastic fan has been handed down through the generations! The bride's great-great grandmother brought that white, plastic fan with her on a covered wagon across the Ohio Valley to NE Kansas in 1872. That white, plastic fan is a cherished family heirloom and it deserved to be the focus of that picture! You...naysayer, you!

In all seriousness, I wonder what the couple thought when they saw that pic.

Your posts became even more hysterical when I bothered to look at the picture. I was thinking a plastic folding fan, but no, an electric fan.

[MamaJunebug]

I can't help but be curmudgeonly about this -- when I got engaged, we put on some nice clothes, went to JCPenney's photo studio, posed for about 10 minutes with 3 different backdrops and then in a week got our proofs and ordered the dang prints. Nobody needed to coach us how to be together, or how to look at each other, or watch us out of the side of their eyes or have an assistant fiddle with things as we became comfortable. Of course, we have gotten to know each other, I had progressed from handholding to smooching to little more than a little more, and we had made up our own minds to get married – – didn't have a thing to do with our overbearing father's. Not that either of our fathers were overbearing. Bravo, Steve Maxwell, for complicating things so much for taking a picture of the newly engaged couple turns into a saga of biblical proportions. Bull sheet!

[nokidsmom]

This is my absolute favorite Christopher picture of all time:

The hangers, hanging rod, crap on table, and random arm just scream Beauty! Romance!

What kills me about that picture is not just the arm but the hangers and the support rod in the front blocking the view. If you are going to snap a photo of the dress hanging up at least make it a clear shot and position it differently.

It's like he took the random shot and prettied it up with the sepia.

He should add another one to his "weddings I will photograph" criteria: Willingness to pay (probably) big money for crap pictures by your godly photographer.

[twin2]

This is one of my faves. To be fair, it was taken by Joesph at Christopher's wedding.

The air vent and rolled up extension cord really do add to the beauty of the day, don't they!

They really don't have an attention for detail, do they. Guess it is a good thing gold old Joseph hasn't started his own photography business yet.

[stonefruit]

In his (very limited) defense, everything about that Josh-Lexi wedding - literally everything! - was aesthetically unfortunate. Yikes.

[NachosFlandersStyle]

Ugh, I HATE those pictures with the groomsmen jumping. It's got icky gender implications (men are wacky and super excited about getting laid, but we don't take them of women because they only want to look pretty!) But it also just looks so stupid and forced. Can you imagine having to literally jump up and down for a photographer on your wedding day?

[PrairieGirl]

I love that one of his first pieces of advice is to lower their expectations. :lol:

Wait, for real? What an asshat.

I thought that NR-Anna looked lovely on her wedding day. I find her beauty to be very classic. But that picture is disturbing to me, and not because of the extension cord and vent. The way Christopher is blurrily lurking in the background and leering at his unsuspecting blushing bride creeps me out. I dunno. I guess this could be considered a regular ol' wedding photo to most people. But it is far too Maxwellian for me.

[divadivine]

Why take pictures of other people taking pictures? Someone please answer that one for me.

[ViolaSebastian]

This is my favorite Christopher Maxwell original. A lovely, beautiful bride that was carefully posed...right outside the Ladies loo.

[sparkles]

It just keeps getting worse, doesn't it? So much to snark on, so little time.

One of my photography teachers gave us this great bit of advice. "When you look through the viewfinder, make sure you use the opportunity to SEE."

Don't just press the shutter button, Christopher. The devil, errr, god is in the details.