  Wide-angle photoproduction of pseudoscalar mesons is investigated under the
assumption of dominance of the handbag mechanism considering both quark
helicity flip and non-flip. The partonic subprocess, meson photoproduction off
quarks, is analysed with the help of a covariant decomposition of the
subprocess amplitudes which is independent of a specific meson generation
mechanism. As examples of subprocess dynamics, however, the twist-2 as well as
two-particle twist-3 contributions are explicitly calculated. Characteristic
features of the handbag approach are discussed in dependence upon the relative
magnitudes of the invariant functions. Differential cross sections and spin
correlations are predicted to show a characteristic behaviour which allows to
test the underlying assumption of handbag dominance.
