Highlanders, by a Highlander

A picture book with a difference is James Sinclair’s The Highlanders (Jacaranda Press, $3.95). Sinclair is a first-rate New Guinea field officer who also happens to be a first-rate photographer, who also happens to be v ery handy with his pen. So we get the kind of photo-journalism which is really involved with its subject, and not done on a quick Cooks tour under the sponsorship of airlines and hotels. (In fact, the author can t resist commenting at the end of the book that all the photographic equipment he used is his own and that “no photo graphic or business firms have in any way assisted in the book’s produc tion .) The colour reproductions of the people and the places of the New Guinea Highlands are the best I’ve seen—with colourful head dresses contrasting with the muted greens and blues of the Highlands valleys. The large format of the 136 pages displays the sharpness of Sinclair s lens.

The pictures dominate the book, for it is primarily a picture book The text gives the background to the Highlands, and its people, and it adds little to what we already know except for some detailed in formation on pioneer air flights into the Highlands before the war Sinclair, currently Deputy District Commissioner of the Eastern High lands, is working on a history of PNG aviation, so he knows.— Sl