Canto is an Italian term that refers to subsections of a long poem. Richard Misrach – described as ‘among the most important and influential of living American photographers’ - created a series of cantos which together formed one, large opus: ‘The Desert Cantos’. This he did by delivering  a completed individual unit (a canto) that, over the years, built up to make the whole. To date I believe he has reached 39 cantos in the Desert Cantos works.

Although I came across Misrach and cantos after I set out on my project structure, I find it the best example in the public domain to describe my idea for the Spirit of Cyprus – a life time project released in complete, standalone, individual components, which build to create the whole. Although standalone, the components are interrelated which together compose the Spirit of Cyprus opus.

 In the Spirit of Cyprus project, the cantos are made up primarily of ‘themes’ but also a number of derivative components in the form of ‘vignettes’ and ‘essays’. The ‘themes’ and ‘vignettes’ are essentially photo-essays. Photographically there is no consistent style shared by all the components. Rather each component will adopt its own style designed to complement its subject matter or the embedded story, for example in the use of light, colour or editing.