Creative photography duo Tom Kelly and Gail Mooney are always pushing themselves to explore the world in new and innovative ways. Story-tellers at heart, these two aim to produce content that is not only beautiful, but is layered with social perspectives. Like a Woman is the team’s recent series born out of Gail’s lifelong advocacy for women’s rights and equality. As a female photographer in a primarily male-dominated profession, she wanted to explore and parallel her own life with other women to show what it is like to break into various roles typically held by men.
My goal is to change the consciousness of our culture, empower women and achieve gender equality in the global work force.
The first step to the whole series was finding women who had interesting stories of being a female minority in male-dominated professions who would participate in the project. To find these women, the duo took to their social media platforms and found overwhelming enthusiasm for the project. The women they chose helped determine the approach, aesthetic, and schedule of the shoots. For each woman, they planned to create an environmental portrait along with a video detailing her work.
Taylor Laverty – Senior Blimp Pilot, Goodyear from Gail Mooney on Vimeo.
Depending on the profession they were profiling, they had different access to what they could photograph versus what was restricted for practical and safety reasons. For some of the women’s professions, tagging along in the action wasn’t feasible, safe, or allowed.
Gail and Tom were determined to ask thought-provoking interview questions to facilitate insightful answers from their subjects. They said that speaking to the women and learning from them was their favorite part of creating the series.
Both Gail and Tom had some favorite takeaways from the experience and plan to continue expanding the series, fine-tuning how they showcase the lives and perspectives of women at work. In Gail’s words:
I have loved meeting and talking to women all over the country about their personal stories, and am thankful to see that the needle toward gender equality has moved forward.
To see more photography and videos from Tom and Gail, visit kellymooney.com.