Mullingar front door portrait fundraiser more than doubles its target

In early April, Mullingar wedding photographer Tanya Cullen fixed her lens on a few friends to lift the gloom of a town under lockdown.

It had been a tough couple of weeks for Tanya, who runs her own company, Bronté Photography. After the Covid-19 outbreak, weddings were postponed left, right and centre, and suddenly she had plenty of time on her hands.

After March 28, people were largely confined to their homes. Standing at front doors to talk to neighbours, to applaud frontline services or to tend to the garden became something of an image of resistance.

And so, Tanya decided, initially, to capture some of her friends in the midst of this historic movement to “stay at home and stay safe”. From there, the seed of an idea was planted.

“I saw it on social media that the St Vincent de Paul shop in Mullingar, run by Alison Scally, had been closed due to the outbreak,” Tanya told the Westmeath Examiner. “They put out a call looking for creative people to come up with original ways of raising funds.”

So what began as some casual front door portraits among friends turned into a charity initiative which, to date, has more than doubled its original fundraising target of €1,000 – at the time of writing, a total of €2,324.

Helped by her sister Andrea, who lives on the opposite side of town, Tanya’s initiative has captured lockdown life at more than 100 houses in Mullingar.

“The idea is that we go to a house within our 2km travel limit, capture your family at the front door and you can make a donation to St Vincent de Paul through a GoFundMe page,” Tanya said.

Bronté Photography’s Facebook page, originally the online shop window for Tanya’s business, has now become a sort of ‘Humans of Mullingar’ page. The front door portraits are often accompanied by a short story.

“We’ve had people celebrating 70th birthdays, 18th birthdays, and someone else who just found out that they were going to have a baby,” Tanya added.

With the lockdown unlikely to be lifted for another few weeks, Tanya has no end point for her campaign. “I’ve scheduled portraits up until Monday night, but if the lockdown continues we might keep it going,” she said.

“We’ll gather all the funds together at some point, and hopefully we’ll be able to have an exhibition or put together a book to raise more for St Vincent de Paul.”

If you’d like to organise a portrait, Tanya can be contacted on 087 768 8886.

Weblinks: www.facebook.com/BrontePhotography. GoFundMe link: https://gf.me/u/xysc9j.