We were lucky to catch up with Stephanie Mullowney recently and have shared our conversation below.
Alright, Stephanie thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. So let’s jump to your mission – what’s the backstory behind how you developed the mission that drives your brand?
Five days after my daughter was born in 2014, my [then] husband left us calling our daughter “defective” because she was diagnosed with Down Syndrome. He chose not to accept her diagnosis and off he went. She had three holes in her heart (CHD), and possible leukemia with high blood counts off the charts for a newborn. Having no husband and my daughter now with no father, I knew there was no time to linger in what felt like a hopeless place. I knew I had to make a life for her. One in which she could thrive and be accepted instead of being misjudged and labeled because of one extra chromosome.
It was a hard journey with no home of our own at first because we had just come back to TN after living in Hawaii for 2 years where the doctors there were offering me tests and abortion clinic phone numbers based on the fact that I was “measuring small”. I did NOT want to have my baby in a place that wanted to get rid of her before she had the chance to even be born. So my car was still in HI too, and I had to ship it back across the ocean. So I stayed with my family for about 8 months until I was able to find a job. I would not be here without them. Our local Down syndrome association also reached out (DSAMT) and I knew at that moment, I wasn’t alone in this journey. Now here’s where it gets really good. One of my bosses (the husband of the family that hired me) just happened to be a pro videographer.
He saw some of the images I took of my daughter with my iPhone and a camera I got as a gift at my baby shower. He said, “You have a gift. You need to go out and get a REAL camera.” I basically laughed hysterically and told him he was crazy because I and advanced technology do NOT get along. But with a couple of months of him pushing me to do it, lo and behold I bought a ‘real’ camera. I continued shooting what I loved, which was my daughter, Hannah Grace. I had prayed for a platform to be able to advocate for her and others with various diagnoses in an attempt to change the negative stigma that surrounds people with Down Syndrome, Autism, Cerebral Palsy, and the like. Society is so quick to limit them, and I wanted a way to portray their unique abilities showing that they have worth just like everyone else.
And the proof is undeniable when you are literally staring at a portrait of it. God answered my prayers and gave me a talent I didn’t know I had. He gave me a mission and I fully intend on seeing it through. I officially opened in March of 2016. After posting my very first Collection of images I was getting calls and emails from reporters both locally and internationally wanting to know why I was photographing kids with ‘special needs. This was the Genesis of Paperdolls Photography. A couple of days after releasing my first images on social media, I was getting calls and messages from various reporters from the U.S. to Australia wanting to know…”Why do you photograph people with ‘special needs?”
So I happily obliged them. We were featured on every T.V. news station in Nashville, TN on radio stations, magazines, and international media features around the globe. As of recently, we were asked to be in a music video that was just released, and also a commercial that is now out! On and on the list continues to the present day. These beautiful individuals continue to change hearts and show the world that we are all more alike than different. I hope to teach the world to love like Jesus does and see others through the lens of unconditional love seeing people who are differently-abled as humans instead of labels.
My mantra is, “Look with eyes, see with your heart”. My sweet Hannah Grace taught me that in a millisecond at her birth, and now we teach others.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers?
My mission is INCLUSION. Therefore, I photograph those of ALL abilities. Because many families who have only children who are typically developing and don’t know much about those who are differently abled, sadly, exclude themselves from my brand. So 90% of the images I post are of children with ‘special needs’ with/without siblings, therefore, early on, I was given the title ‘The Special Needs Photographer’ sort of by default, and that just made me beam with pride and joy to have that identity of representing these amazing families. So yes, that community is the one I specialize in, and it’s where my heart lies as it’s the calling God has put on my life. It does however break my heart how many families of typically developing children contact me saying they “LOVE” my work, but then when they start viewing my FB page and see all those extraordinary faces over and over, they won’t schedule with me saying something to the effect of… ‘Your work is incredible, but I would rather not book because my child doesn’t have a “disability” and wouldn’t ‘fit in’ with your work/brand’. So off they go to someone else so they aren’t associated with my ‘brand of human’. It’s a deep down kind of pain every time this happens. Again, my mission is INCLUSION and educating society on the beauty and capabilities of these amazing individuals. I want others to join us. I want them to embrace kids like mine, and not be ashamed to have their child featured on the same page as my child…IT IS LITERALLY MY ENTIRE MINISTRY. So yes, I in fact DO specialize in ‘special needs’ portraiture/artwork. I am so proud and grateful for my ministry, and I am not ashamed of the incredible people I feature who have all touched my life in innumerable, beautiful ways. My dream is that others who have typically developing children would help us promote inclusion simply by showing up and booking sessions too and meeting and learning about kids like mine. You never know…our kids might become best friends! I provide everything from outdoor portraiture, to studio custom sets, dispersion art, and composite art. My work is published on a global scale, has been on television, magazines, books, you name it. What I ‘do’ and who I ‘am’ are literally one in the same. I am actively living my purpose and trying to educate others on the beauty of those who are differently abled trying to create a future in which my daughter is accepted like everyone else. She and her friends are important too, and worthy, and loved, and have SO MUCH to offer. Please give our kids a chance, they have value just like yours.
We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.
Well there are some things that are a bit too hard to share here, however I will say that being left by your husband while your baby is in the NICU with 3 holes in her heart, possible leukemia, and a post birth Trisomy 21 diagnosis was a hard pill to swallow. NOT tough because she had Down Syndrome, but tough because of how her extra chromosome was being falsely represented and was unsatisfactory according to others. Hearing the same man that used to sing songs to her in my tummy suddenly call her “Defective” was nothing short of traumatic. I had no home there or job or car (I came back to TN from HI to give birth near family), so now I’m alone couch surfing and bumming rides to cardio and oncology appoints where you see other children being treated for cancer with ports in their chest as they scream out in pain from the burning of the chemo. All the while I’m sobbing the entire time just praying her counts would come down and that the cardiologist would give me any news besides, “with her heart in its current state, she won’t live to age 3 without open heart surgery”. She had EKG’s and ultrasounds on her heart, blood draw after blood draw and I still have nightmares about it. I cringe every time CHD is mentioned, it’s like a trauma trigger for me, I can’t even imagine the pain of all those parents who’ve endured the babies having open heart surgery (Hannah’s holes all closed-thank you Jesus). I was doing this all as a newly single mother who couldn’t locate her husband and he never paid child support. He just disappeared from our lives making the choice not to love his daughter because of ONE extra chromosome. We used to sleep on a borrowed mattress on a hardwood floor in a tiny home we rented after I was able to find work. All of our furniture and houseware was donated. BUT GOD. He took our mess and turned it into a message. He bottled so many tears as I prayed for a platform to advocate for my daughter and still make ends meet and be there for her as a single mom all at the same time. I had zero clue what that looked like and doubted such a request was even possible even as I prayed for it, but Jesus looked past my doubt and orchestrated so many things that led up to me ‘out of the blue’ becoming that ‘special needs photographer’. I’m no one special, and it was never my dream to take pictures. I grew up in a very humble home with my mom, siblings, and my step-dad who worked tirelessly to put food on the table. We didn’t have fancy things or country club memberships, but we had Jesus. I say all that because the Lord can use any of us to fulfill his purpose, even the seemingly ‘nobody’s’ of the world. He takes our broken hearts, and hopeless looking situations and weaves them into the most beautiful testimonies. God takes ALL things (not just ‘some’ things) He says ALL things, and He works them together for our GOOD. We may not see the good as we are sitting in the middle of the storm and the waves just keep hitting us, but He is working behind the scenes and fighting on our behalf always. So long as there is a God, there is HOPE. Therefore, we will always have hope, because God (he always was, is, and will be, period.) and will never leave us or forsake us. He created our kids and will provide a way for us and them. And Paperdolls Photography just happens to be the way He created for us to show the world kids like mine, through the lens of Jesus. What an amazing way to show His glory.
Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?
I’d have to say what most of the doctors and most of society said about my daughter (which I never believed in the first place-there’s a bunch of ‘thing’s). They tell you your child is unworthy of life. They say she would be an inconvenience and a burden. They said she wouldn’t have friends or enjoy life. I felt that I was unworthy, unprepared, and not good enough to have a child as amazing as my Hannah Grace, because why would a nobody like me deserve such an incredible gift? I became a different person after Hannah was born. I went from being a doormat to a resilient fighter. And even though I still feel so unworthy to be her Mama, I know that Hannah IS WORTHY. She deserves a parent who loves her and will fight for her, even if I have to do it alone. I will never leave her and I will never stop advocating for her and her friends-EVER. Failure is NOT an option because if I fail, then I fail her, and that’s just NOT going to happen. God gave me this task and He will see it through. She’s the best; most amazing thing that’s ever happened to me. I am forever grateful for this gift of Down Syndrome along with all the other uniquely abled individuals I am blessed to meet every day. Oh please don’t miss out on the gifts they all have to offer, you would be doing yourself an injustice. I can’t imagine life without my Hannah Grace.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://paperdollsphotography.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thedollcollections/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thedollcollections
- Other: https://paperdollsphotography.com/letter-to-my-daughter/
Image Credits
All images by Paperdolls Photography/Stephanie Mullowney