Glamorous Album

Depicts Tahiti

In Colour

If anyone, alter all the publi city that travellers have given it over the past 200 years, still has any doubts that Tahiti is one of the world’s most beautiful islands, he should invest forth with in a copy of Tahiti, a col lection of 60 superb colour

photographs by Hubert Sieben.

THE photographs are probably the finest of Tahiti in colour ever published in a single book.

The book, which was printed in Japan, has pages measuring 10 in. deep by 8J in. wide. The pictures have captions in English, French, German and Spanish. There is also an introduction in the four languages.

Of the 60 photographs, exactly half are primarily of Tahiti’s justly renowned women—some of the women exhibiting a much greater expanse of bare skin than the average tourist is likely to see.

The rest of the pictures are mainly of Tahiti’s lush and spectacular scenery; and there are one or two pictures of men. which show that such creatures do exist in Tahiti— a matter one is often inclined to doubt.

As is frequently the case with books of this kind, the introduction is not on a par with the photographs

—the main trouble with this one being its numerous inaccuracies.

The European discoverer of Tahiti, for example, is described as being Pedro de Quiros in 1606, and he is said to have called it the Isle of Love, whereas, in fact, Tahiti was discovered in 1767 by Captain Samuel Wallis.

Also untrue is the statement that Captain Cook was accompanied by a “party of Royal Society bigwigs” when he visited Tahiti in 1769 to observe the transit of the planet Venus. The only member of the Royal Society aboard his ship was Joseph Banks.

But these and other erroneous statements in the introduction are of no real account considering the magnificient photographs. It is merely a pity the introduction was not vetted by someone who knew better.

A LESS glamorous, but equally interesting album of photographs which turned up on our review desk recently is Rebecca and the Maoris, by Gregory Riethmaier. The pictures in this case are in black and white.

They depict Rebecca, an attractive 21-year-old girl, and her friends and associates in the Rotorua area.—RL. (TAHITI. Seven Seas Publishing Pty Ltd., PO Box 1431, Wellington, NZ. 30/-

Nz. Rebecca And The Maoris. A.

H. and A. W. Reed Pty. Ltd., Sydney. 36/6.)