Cyprus in Picture. By Reno Wideson. (MacGibbon & Kee. 25s.)
IT is a pity that this volume has appeared hard on the heels of Martin HO •limann's collections from Italy and Greece. Mr. Wideson is a self-confessed amateur where Photography is concerned: there is a charm- ing spontaneity about much of his work which one is liable to overlook after a surfeit of glossiness. His portraits in Particular have a sculptural quality, a depth of feeling which the professional tends to miss.
Cyprus is an island of contradictions, and Mr. Wideson underlines them. He has his prejudices, though: he tends to choose "monasteries and mudbrick houses instead of de luxe hotels and cabarets, village girls instead of bathing belles." Not for him the nightspots of Nicosia. But in the end he capitulates to modernity : after a gallery of peasants and pot-hatted priests, a pro- fusion pf spring blossom and Paphos cedars, he ends up with •sulphuric acid plants, copper leaching tanks, textile factories, and a Central Power Station. This is all very well in its way, but it isn't really Mr. Wideson's way; and it robs his book of its otherwise admirable homogeneity. The 'atmosphere is so Greek that one forgets Cyprus is under British admini- stration; it comes as a surprise to see Eliza- beth Arden rubbing shoulders with the honoured name of Mavrogordato above a shop-front. Sir Andrew Wright, the Governor, contributes a preface. One doesn't feel he has been adequately rewarded for his trouble by an appalling newsreel shot of himself reviewing troops.
P. M. G.
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