Diana Balnis, a family portrait photographer, found a way to turn a time when she is not allowed to work as she usually does into a time to use her work as a way to do good.
Just a few weeks ago, Ms. Balnis, who lives in Springs, heard about a photo project in Massachusetts that is documenting families forced to stay at home during the Covid-19 pandemic, and also raising money for charity. On March 17, Cara Soulia and Kristen Collins launched the Front Steps Project in Needham, Mass., according to their website. The photographer drives up to a family’s house at an arranged time and takes photographs of them on their stoops and porches, from a safe distance, for just a few moments. In turn, the family makes a donation to the Needham Community Council.
Since launching the project, they have inspired hundreds of photographers around the country to join in on #TheFrontStepsProject, raising more than $200,000 collectively for organizations and nonprofits. Ms. Balnis loved the idea and decided on March 25 to raise money for Meals on Wheels of East Hampton.
In two weeks, she has photographed 120 families from Montauk to Quogue, raising more than $3,000.
“I thought it would be fun . . . a fun way to get me out of the house and see people, to see my clients, to make some new clients,” she said. The response was more than she had ever hoped. “I was shocked.”
Word quickly spread over social media. Even a whole neighborhood booked her for one day. Some families chose to pose for quarantine-inspired photos, like the adult family who opted to stay indoors, putting their gloved hands on the bay window with a “Sorry, we’re closed” sign. Others wanted the perfect family portrait on the front steps, with everyone fully coiffed, Ms. Balnis said she heard from many moms who said they appreciated the excuse to put on makeup and do their hair for the first time in weeks.
She emails the families two to three frames, along with a link to the GoFundMe page she set up for Meals on Wheels. No donation is too small and all the money goes directly to the organization.
“I put a goal of $500,” Ms. Balnis said. “I never thought I would have raised that much in such a short amount of time.”
“We loved the idea from the moment we came across her project on Facebook,” said Summer Borsack of Springs. As a family that already supports Meals on Wheels, the Borsacks found it particularly meaningful, and it was, she said, also a welcome break from home schooling. “It was one great example of many of the members of the community reaching out to love and support one another.”
Crystal Reiner, a fourth-grade teacher at the Springs School, said she used the opportunity to show her two young children, 3 and 6, how to make the best of any situation.
While her daughters are used to having a working mother, trying to explain why she was working from home “and why they could not go to school to see their friends and teachers is not a conversation that they understand,” she said. “My husband and I did the best we could explaining to two young children that there are germs going around that are making people very, very sick.”
When she heard that Ms. Balnis, whose business is Diana Lee Photography, shot photos of her when she was pregnant and of her newborn, was participating in the project, she said she “wanted to show my children that we have to make the best and fun memories out of a scary and trying time.”
They did not pose for the typical family portrait. A friend of hers did a funny quarantine photo, “so of course I had to outdo her,” she joked.
They stood on the porch of their Hampton Bays house, a small chalkboard in front of them that says “Home Schooling for Dummies” in between them. Ms. Reiner is holding a laptop in her gloved hand, while her oldest daughter, Addi, points Lysol at her and her youngest daughter, Devon, curls up behind toilet paper while her husband, Brant Reiner, stands masked and gloved, with Lysol in hand.
Mylan Le-Eckardt, who lives in Northwest Woods with her husband and three children, said giving back is important to them. “The project is a selfless act of kindness, uniting us as community even more to help those less fortunate around us in a time of need,” she said.
“For me, our photo captures us in a very difficult and scary time in life, but yet we still stood there as a family being present and together and still smiling through it all.”
Denise Roland of Quogue Village said as a parent with small children ages 4 to 6, the photos represent a moment of reflection. “For us, as a family, the photograph will forever capture an emotional, historic moment in time,” she said. “We knew that the proceeds would benefit Meals on Wheels, and it felt good to be contributing as a community member. We also know that the photos will be something that we look back on years from now. We will remember, with our children, what this time meant, what it taught us, how we all worked together to find our way out of it.”
