Most landscape companies are better at their craft than they are at showing it.

Your work is exceptional. The photos rarely are. And somewhere between running a business and building great projects, marketing falls to the bottom of the list where it stays until it becomes a problem.

I know this because I spent 20 years working across every corner of the industry, including 12 years as lead landscape designer at a design/build/maintain firm in West Michigan. I watched exceptional work go undocumented every single season.

I didn't start as a photographer. I started in the soil.

I grew up on a family farm in West Michigan, the kind of place where work ethic isn't taught, it's absorbed. My horticultural roots started in my parents' greenhouse and landscaping business where I learned plant nomenclature by osmosis and developed a genuine love for the green industry before I ever knew it was a career.

Over the next 20 years I worked across every corner of the industry. Design. Installation. Maintenance. Grounds management. Snow removal. I earned every stripe. I know what it takes to build something exceptional and I know how rarely that work gets documented the way it deserves.

It was there that I first saw what professional photography could do. We hired a photographer to document our projects and I started using those images constantly, in sales conversations, in proposals, in award submissions. The results were undeniable. I distinctly remember a client saying "I saw the picture on your website and I want my yard to look like that." That one sentence changed how I thought about images forever.

Those same photos helped us win industry awards and establish our firm as a leader in the local market. I saw firsthand that great images weren't just nice to have. They were a serious business tool.

Later, as my hobby of photography grew into something more serious, I started noticing something that bothered me. So many landscape companies had exceptional work and terrible images to show for it. Websites that undersold everything they had built. Projects that deserved recognition but never got it.

Something clicked. I had the industry knowledge, the design eye, and the camera. More importantly I had a mission. To elevate the landscape industry with better images so that the companies doing great work finally get the recognition they deserve.

That’s why CM Images exists.

In 2020 I left my landscape design career to start a photography business built specifically for the green industry. Not because I wanted to be a photographer, but because I kept seeing incredible work go unnoticed and I knew I could do something about it.

My design background changed everything about how I approach a shoot. I'm not just composing a pretty image. I'm thinking about how a designer would use it in a proposal, how a sales rep would use it in a bid, how an owner would use it on their website. Every shot has a job to do and I frame it accordingly.

In 2024 I became a StoryBrand Certified Guide, which added a strategic layer to the photography and video work. Now CM Images helps landscape companies not just capture their work but communicate it clearly so the right clients find them.

A word about roots.

Every landscaper knows that growth happens above and below ground. The same is true for your business. Strong roots don't just fuel growth, they protect everything you've already worked to build.

Photography and video aren't just marketing tools. They're investments in your foundation. They attract better clients, strengthen your team's pride in their work, and make your business less dependent on referrals and word of mouth alone. That's not explosive growth. That's a business built to last.

The personal part.

My work ethic came from the farm. My eye came from the industry. And my perspective on hard work paying off came from an unlikely place, a sailboat.

For over two years my family lived full time aboard Fika, our 2005 Beneteau 423, completing America's Great Loop, a 6,000 mile journey circumnavigating the eastern half of the United States. What looks like a vacation to most people is really just another version of the same lesson. Unpredictability, problem solving, and a payoff that's worth every difficult moment in between. Sailing echoes farm life more than you'd think. You're basically piloting a vessel with a tractor engine that breaks constantly, needs endless maintenance, and costs ungodly amounts of money. But you do it because the experience on the other side of the hard part is worth it.

That's how I feel about this work too.

I've designed, built, maintained, and sold landscape work. I've been cold, tired, and covered in mulch. I've felt the pride of finishing a project that exceeded a client's expectations and the frustration of watching great work go undocumented.

That shared experience is what makes CM Images different. I'm not an outsider with a camera. I'm a landscape professional who picked up a camera because the industry deserved better.

Let's make sure your work gets the recognition it's earned.

I’m one of you.

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Meet the Team

  • A smiling man with a beard and short hair in a checkered shirt, standing indoors with sunlight coming through windows in the background.

    Chris Major

    Founder and Lead Photographer

  • Black and white portrait of a smiling woman with long hair and glasses, wearing a black top with lace sleeves and layered necklaces, outdoors with a blurred natural background.

    Alison Major

    Project Manager

  • A black and white portrait of a man with short hair, beard, smiling, wearing a checkered shirt, standing against a plain wall.

    Louis Ford

    Production Assistant, Video