Ans Westra - Private Journeys / Public Signposts

The photographs were so strong that they convey their own messages, and allow space for people to interpret what they choose to find, what they choose to relate to their own experience. So, to some extent, words alongside pictures have to be limited. Certainly, they should never try to take away from or take over the spirit of the photograph.

– Author Kāterina Te Heikōkō Mataira on the book she worked on with Ans Westra, Whaiora: The Pursuit of Life (1985)

I can't help being captured by photography. I'm a gatherer, I collect images, my vision of that particular moment.

– Ans Westra, at the start of this documentary

I don't really photograph in the way that press people photograph. They look at the actual event and the big picture. I look more at how people experience it.

– Ans Westra, early in this documentary

I've had people say that they never knew I was taking the pictures afterwards. And I don't know; I'm big enough. They should have noticed me.

– Ans Westra

Look at my fat guts! Bloody hell. God, I didn't know I was that bloody fat! Must be those fish heads.

– Poet Hone Tuwhare looks at pictures of him taken by Ans Westra

There are various opinions on that book. They've haunted me ever since.

– Ans Westra on her 1964 book Washday at the Pā