Bio
Dr. Jodie Castellani is a photographer and writer based out of Charleston, South Carolina. An East Tennessee native, she was raised in Saudi Arabia where her father was employed with Aramco for nearly 20 years. She graduated high school from Chatham Hall in Virginia and earned both a B.A. in psychology and a Ph.D. in clinical psychology from the University of Tennessee at Knoxville. Dr. Castellani has maintained a private practice in forensic and clinical psychology since 2000 while also managing Castle Light Images.
Dr. Castellani completed photography/film certifications at The Light Factory in Charlotte, North Carolina, and an internship with the Charlotte Photography Group. She has completed professional certificates at the Rocky Mountain School of Photography in Missoula, Montana, genealogical research (advanced) at Boston University, genetic genealogy (DNA) at Excelsior College, multimedia training at the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University, and courses in memoir and non-fiction writing with Creative Nonfiction.
Dr. Castellani's work has been featured in publications such as N-Photo, CNN, Huffington Post, Sportsfreak, Taste of the South, Al-Ayyam Al-Jamilah, Creative Loafing, Yours (UK) and the Social Documentary Network. A cameo film starring Dan Truhitte, best known for portraying "Rolf" in the Academy Award-winning film The Sound of Music, was shown at the Filmmakers Gallery in Palm Springs, California. Her image, The Graphite Reactor, won the Our Ecological Footprint award at the 18th Appalachian Mountain Photography Competition at the Turchin Center for the Visual Arts in Boone, North Carolina in 2021. The prior year, her image As the Sun Gently Sets was featured in a juried exhibit at the Southeast Center for Photography in Greenville, South Carolina. In 2022, another environmental image, Radioactive: Fenced In, won Best of Show at the 19th Appalachian Mountain Photography Competition in Boone, North Carolina and was featured at the Turchin Center for the Visual Arts and the Banff Film Festival. The image, "Look Out" was exhibited at the Praxis Gallery in Minneapolis, MN in an international juried photography exhibition from March 16 - April 13, 2024 and "Home of the Range" will be featured for a "Home" gallery exhibit from November 16 - December 14, 2024.
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In addition to documentary work, Dr. Castellani covers the greater Charleston lowcountry region as a contributing news photographer for Alamy Live News based out of the UK. Past international coverage includes the FEI World Equestrian Games, the Billy Graham Memorial Week and Funeral, the Donald J. Trump MAGA Rally in Charlotte, and the Loyal White Knights of the KKK Trump Victory Parade. She has also served as a contributing photographer for the Carolina Public Press, a statewide non-partisan newspaper based out of Asheville.
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