1962
In early 1961 the French government offered to assist the newly established Republic of Cyprus in its first steps by providing assistance in devising a plan for the development of a tourist infrastructure on the island. Two architects, Manuel Baud-Bovy and Aristea Tzanou were selected to carry out the study. As part of their study they took a large number of photographs, which at a later stage they entrusted to the Bank of Cyprus Cultural Foundation. A small selection of those were chosen to be published in this volume. The photographs combine their documentary character with a keen observation of the land and people of Cyprus at the time without any hints of sentimentality or attempts to glorify the land, the monuments and the people. The aesthetic of the photos, in many respects, moves in parallel to the New Topographics movement offering a detached observation of the cypriot landscape as it was found in 1962. Great care was taken in the scanning, tonal corrections and reproduction of the photographs, pushing the limits of the offset press in terms of ink densities achieved. Despite the ability to push the tonal corrections more in the direction of dramatic lighting effects it was decided to keep them in balance with the general “sense” of the photographs.