Way back in 2014, Sean Woollgar began documenting the colourful life of his partner’s 91-year-old grandmother, Lorna. From growing up during the Depression to working in the army on radar during the Second World War. This video interview series was to ensure the family had a testimony of her personal history and were able to recount significant moments – all shared in her own voice.
Unfortunately, Sean was unable to complete the interviews as Lorna died before filming was concluded. At this time, Sean was struck by the tremendous loss of all the precious stories that remained undocumented. This was a lightbulb moment to create the concept for a charitable project entitled Aotearoa Moving Portraits, a curated public exhibition of cinematic portraits capturing the rich heritage of Aotearoa’s melting pot of people and their stories, to hang in a gallery, for posterity.
It felt only natural that the next step would be a commercial offshoot for people who wanted a personal and private portrait of themselves for their friends and loved ones.
Using their combined 70 years of experience in the documentary field, Wairarapa locals, Sean Woollgar and Phil Stebbing got together with a plan for the best way to offer a service to people in their area and Moving Portraits was born.