In June 2009, Charles released his first solo publication, a collection of photographs from Houston's Westheimer Street Festival. The book is called "West Fest: Portrait of a Street Festival", and contains over 400 pages of full-color photos spanning over 15 years of festivities. It is available from Blurb publishers by way of his web site, www.ctphotoartist.com.

His photographic works are also in print in the volume "HIWI - The Book", available on Amazon.com. Four photos he submitted for a Houston-themed photo contest were selected for publication in this collection.

Photos from Charles have twice been featured at Lawndale Art Center's "The Big Show", an annual summertime juried art competition. The show selects approximately 10 percent of submissions for display; in 2007, there were over 1,000 submissions.

Charles is a completely self-taught photographer. He began developing his craft with a Canon 35mm SLR and switched to digital equipment later. Working with a Nikon D50 for several years, he recently upgraded to the Nikon D60 digital SLR.

A native of Chicago, Charles has a Bachelor of Science Degree from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. To go with his right-brain creativity, he is an accomplished technical professional, with experience in software development, database, and web design.