  A theoretical formalism leading to elegant derivation of formulae for all
spin observables is outlined for photo production of mesons with arbitrary spin
parity $s^{\pi}$. The salient features of this formalism based on irreducible
tensor techniques are i) the number of independent irreducible tensor
amplitudes is $4(2s+1)$, ii) a single compact formula is sufficient to express
these amplitudes in terms of allowed electric and magnetic multipole amplitudes
and iii) all the spin observables including beam analyzing powers as well as
the differential cross section are expressible in terms of bilinear irreducible
tensors of rank 0 to $2(s+1)$. The relationship between the irreducible tensor
amplitudes and the helicity amplitudes is elucidated in general and explicit
expressions for the helicity amplitudes are given in terms of the irreducible
tensor amplitudes in the particular cases of pseudoscalar and vector meson
photo production. The connection between the irreducible tensor amplitudes
introduced here and the well known CGLN amplitudes for photo production of
pseudoscalar mesons is also established.
