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Gail Mooney: A Photographer & Filmmaker

“My hope is to create awareness and inspire other women to follow their passions regardless of perceived up hill battles.”

96Victoria Flexner
By Victoria Flexner

This story is part of our 1,000+ Stories campaign. What’s your story?

Name: Gail Mooney

Business: Kelly/Mooney Productions

Location: Brookside, New Jersey, U.S. 

Industry: Arts & Entertainment 

Reason for starting? As a photographer and now a filmmaker, I have been working my entire career in male dominated professions. I am working now on a personal project making short videos about women who work in professions where they are the minority. My hope is to create awareness and inspire other women to follow their passions regardless of perceived up hill battles.

Related: Read about another filmmaker here. 

How do you define success? My definition of success is to achieve personal happiness by using my craft as a photographer and filmmaker to make our world a better place. I’m not a quitter. I don’t even walk out of a bad movie.

Biggest success: Making a documentary about individuals around the world who are doing extraordinary things to make a positive difference and make our world a better place.

What is your top challenge and how you have addressed it? Dealing with rejection. I don’t let rejections or the naysayers make me stop pursuing my dreams and passions. Experiencing gender bias for over 30 years in a profession where women are the minority. It didn’t defeat me, rather it made me try harder.

Related: Creative CEO Fights Gender Bias 

Who is your most important role model? My mom. She came from a difficult background but she kept her positive spirit alive. She encouraged me and got me through my hardest days. She taught me to believe. I could go on and on my mom and I miss her terribly since she died in 2004. But I have channeled my sorrow into a niche business where I use my storytelling craft to create family biography videos telling a family’s legacy and story through the eyes of their loved ones while they are still there to tell them.

[box_light]Website   http://kellymooney.com/like-a-woman-multimedia-project/
Twitter   twitter.com/mooneykelly
Facebook   www.facebook.com/BreakingBarriersLikeAWoman/ Instagram   www.instagram.com/breakingbarrierslikeawoman/
Pinterest   www.pinterest.com/gailmooneykelly/
Vimeo   vimeo.com/kellymooney/collections[/box_light]

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Edited by The Story Exchange