After photographing 69 Wairarapa children over nine months, photographer Esther Bunning was finally able to hand a $3300 cheque to the Make-a-Wish foundation at the weekend.
The collection of photographs now feature in a book, Children of the Wairarapa, and the sitting fee for each photography session made up the donation.
"I did this because I wanted to get my teeth into a portraiture project and thought, if we created the book, we would donate the sitting fee to the Make-a-Wish Foundation, so that was really exciting," Ms Bunning said.
"I started this project knowing it would challenge me and take me out of my comfort zone. I've been a photographer for close to 18 years now, and while I've always photographed brides and weddings on location and children in the studio, I hadn't really done a lot of portrait photography on location."
Ms Bunning, who also won Wellington Photographer of the Year last week, says each child has a page in the book as either one image or a series of images telling a story, with some portraits taken in her studio and some on location.