Portraits for Good Wellington: Charity Portrait Sessions This October
This October, I’m using my Wellington portrait studio to do a little more than create photographs.
Portraits for Good is a $75 professional portrait session, with $50 from every booking donated to charity. You receive a professionally retouched portrait, while most of what you pay goes towards an organisation doing meaningful work.
Why I started Portraits for Good
The idea of using what you have to help other people has been with me for a long time.
In 1990, when I was nine years old, I travelled to Vietnam with my parents, a group of New Zealand doctors and a Frontline documentary crew.
My father had previously worked in Vietnam during the war with the New Zealand Surgical Team. He was an engineer rather than a doctor, repairing vehicles and medical equipment, and it was also where he met my mother.
Years later, he and a group of former team members helped organise a return to Vietnam.
They gathered donated medical equipment and supplies in New Zealand and shipped them over to hospitals around Quy Nhon.
I can still remember the container of equipment. There were bicycles, medical supplies and even a dentist chair that, as a nine-year-old, I remember playing around on before everything was sent away.
At the time, I probably didn't fully understand what they were doing.
Looking back, what has stayed with me is that these people used the skills, connections and resources they already had to help others.
They were doctors, engineers and people who knew how to make things happen.
Photography is what I know how to do.
That experience has always been somewhere in the back of my mind, and eventually it made me ask a fairly simple question:
How can I use photography to give something back?
From that idea to charity portrait sessions
I started running charity portrait sessions in September 2022.
The idea was simple from the beginning. Rather than just asking people to donate money, I could contribute my time, studio and photography skills and give them something meaningful in return.
A professional portrait.
Over time, those sessions have developed into Portraits for Good.
It is still built around exactly the same principle.
I have the studio. I have the equipment. I have spent years learning how to photograph people.
This is a way of using those things for something beyond my normal commercial work.
I also like the fact that the person being photographed becomes part of it.
You are not simply buying a discounted photo session. Your booking is creating a donation.
Do enough of those sessions across October and lots of individual $50 donations can turn into something much more significant.
How does Portraits for Good work?
The format is deliberately simple.
Book a 10-minute portrait session at my Wellington studio for $75 including GST.
Your session includes:
- A 10-minute professional studio portrait session
- One professionally retouched digital photograph
- Your choice of portrait style and background
- $50 donated to your chosen charity
You can come in by yourself, bring your partner, photograph your family or friends, or even bring your pet.
If what you need is simply a new professional headshot, that's completely fine too.
My normal 10-minute Refresh portrait session is $185, so reducing the session to $75 is part of my contribution to the project.
This isn't a normal sale or promotion.
There is a reason the session costs $75. Most of it isn't going to me.
Which charities can I support?
For Portraits for Good 2026, I’m highlighting three organisations:
KidsCan supports Kiwi children affected by poverty by helping provide essentials such as food, clothing and health products.
Mental Health Foundation of New Zealand works to improve mental health and wellbeing across Aotearoa through education, resources, advocacy and community initiatives.
Breast Cancer Foundation NZ supports breast cancer education, research, early detection and people affected by breast cancer.
You can also nominate another Wellington-based registered charity that means something to you.
I wanted that choice to be part of the project because everybody has different causes, organisations and experiences that matter to them.
Your portrait can support something that matters personally to you.
Who can book a Portraits for Good session?
Pretty much anyone.
You might want:
- A new LinkedIn or professional headshot
- A portrait simply because you haven't had a good photograph of yourself for years
- A photograph with your partner
- A family portrait
- A photo with a friend
- A portrait of your dog or another pet
- Something completely different
It doesn't need to be corporate and it doesn't need to be serious.
The photograph is yours.
When are Portraits for Good sessions available?
Portraits for Good sessions are available throughout October 2026 at my central Wellington photography studio.
Profile Photos Studio
Level 3
85 Victoria Street
Wellington
Sessions are only 10 minutes, but availability is limited throughout the month.
[BOOK YOUR PORTRAITS FOR GOOD SESSION]
Using what you have to help
I sometimes think back to that trip to Vietnam in 1990.
What stayed with me wasn't just the medical equipment they donated. It was seeing a group of people look at what they had access to, what they knew how to do, and work out how they could use it to help somebody else.
More than 30 years later, Portraits for Good is my own small version of that idea.
My contribution happens to be photography.
If you have been putting off getting a good photograph of yourself, your family, your friends or your pet, October is a pretty good time to do it.
You get a portrait. A charity receives $50. And something as simple as having your photograph taken can do a little bit of good.