Ans Westra is one of Aotearoa New Zealand’s most celebrated photographers. Throughout her career, Westra has documented life in New Zealand with a particular focus on Māori life and culture. Westra says, "The main body of my work consists of documentary photography, the documentation of people in their everyday existence; life in all its facets."

These photographs show snapshots of life in central Wellington over several decades; the 1986 Cuba Street Carnival, with balloons, bunting and mullets, a Road Worker repairing the Manners Street tramlines outside paint and wallpaper company R&E Tingey and Co. in 1959, and Lambton Quay’s Midland Park in 1990, when it was home to Henry Moore’s sculpture Bronze Form, now at Wellington’s Botanic Gardens.

Ans Westra (born 1936, Holland) immigrated to New Zealand in 1957 with a Diploma in Arts and Craft Teaching from Industrieschool voor Meisjes, Rotterdam. She joined the Wellington Camera Club in 1958 and worked in various local photographic studios before working as a freelance documentary photographer in 1962, and for the Department of Education and Te Ao Hou, a Māori magazine published by the Government. Westra was awarded the Companion of the Order of New Zealand Merit (CNZM) in 1998 and an Arts Foundation Icon Award in 2007.