Meis produced his book to fulfil promises made more than 25 years ago to a Sfakiot shepherd called Manolis Nikoloudakis, and the well-known photographer from Kastelli Kissamos, Yiorgis Anyfantakis.  Both men encouraged the young George Meis when he was drifting through Crete in his youth, after his photography studies at the University of Paris.  Some of Meis’s black and white photographs taken at that time are included in the book – atmospheric shots of elderly villagers about their daily tasks, baking bread, tending animals or gossiping on the village bench.

After a whistle-stop written tour through Cretan mythology and the Minoan Civilisation, Meis plunges us into the wonderful colours and textures of his more modern work.  Many of the photographs are in fold-out form, presented in angles as wide as 360 degrees, offering us truly panoramic views from many different points.  The colours are glorious, the shots superb, the locations varied and interesting – ranging from a detail of a stone step or a blazing geranium in a pot, through to a huge vista of the Lefka Ori covered in snow.

Meis freely confesses, however, that he has tinkered with some of his photographs to remove the more modern and less photogenic things he did not want in his pictures.  But surely when you entitle your book ‘Land of Crete’, these less picturesque aspects are relevant, perhaps as a contrast to the beauty and majesty of the subject?  Otherwise you are left with a magnificent, but slightly sanitised, view of reality – rather like using ‘fuzzy focus’ on photographs of an aging film star.

Apart from that one rather carping comment, Meis’s book is a hugely enjoyable feast for the eyes, and I can thoroughly recommend it to any Cretophile.

Reviewer:
Ann Lisney.