When Clarkson University student Charles Hermann met SUNY Potsdam student Ann Sangermano in her freshman year, the shutterbugs “clicked.”
Married in 1996, they would join forces professionally 10 years later under the name Ann Charles Photography. They’ve been clicking together ever since.
Ridgefield, where they have lived since 2015, is the perfect base for them, said Chuck, a self-taught photographer who is also an engineer. He and Ann, who has a Bachelor of Arts degree with a concentration in art and photography, liked that Ridgefield was “routinely mentioned in conversations about best small towns, best main streets and safest towns in Connecticut.”
There the Ann Charles Photography studio offers wedding, event and portrait photography as well as videography. The couple also do shoots at dance studios and have been photographing holiday parties and tree-lightings at country clubs. (“We would love to do more corporate and holiday parties,” he added.) All of it, they said, is “creative, fun and natural.”
Fun businesses tend to be financially challenging. But Chuck said that since Covid, the business has actually expanded as he and Ann have networked – advertising and posting on local Facebook groups in Westchester County, the rest of the Hudson Valley and Connecticut while also relying on word of mouth and their five-star reviews on Google and Wedding Wire.They’ve also focused on new opportunities, including shooting more headshots and on-site family portraits, as well as offering family “mini-portraits” amid local parks in places like Briarcliff Manor, Cortlandt and Lewisboro over the past four years.
How do you keep event photography creative? Chuck said he challenges himself to incorporate the environment, rather than excluding it. “Can you put a group of people in front of a wall and take a good picture? Yes, that’s pretty easy. But if you want to make it interesting, put them on the stairs, or in the garden or near trees.” He said he used those settings to create a foreground and background that framed the subjects, giving the person viewing the photograph multiple things to look at.
And keeping it fun? “Our approach is to become best friends with our clients. It’s not about putting them in front of the camera and taking pictures of them. It’s about making a connection, having a good conversation and a good time and capturing those moments.”
But event photography isn’t always plain sailing – far from it. “Ann is always saying that she would like to write a book about what we witness and encounter at weddings,” Chuck said. “We could fill a magazine.”
She prefers capturing families, especially children and newborns. “There is beauty, purity and love…” as well as “fun, excitement and spontaneity,” she said.
Chuck’s tastes are less PG, gravitating as they do to “boudoir” photography. Boudoir photos, he explained, are “typically intimate, sensual and romantic photos that emphasize the curves and beauty of the body. When photographing couples, it also captures the essence of the relationship between them.” He said most “boudoir” clients were women, although he has shot a male boudoir session. “My aim is for everyone to walk away with a sense of empowerment, feeling sexy and confident, having accomplished something they didn’t think they could do.”
Ann Charles Photography gives a portion of its session fees from the family mini-portraits to the recreation departments of the towns where the shoots take place and has donated more than $4,000 in the last four years. For more, click here.
