Shooting Melanesians: Martin Johnson and Edward Salisbury in the Southwest Pacific

Abstract

By the turn of the 20th century American photographers were venturing into the western Pacific. Two of the first cinematic teams to film in Melanesia were the Kansan explorers Martin and Osa Johnson and the yachtsman Edward A. Salisbury, who was joined by Merian Cooper (of later King Kong fame). Both drew on representational practice honed partly along the American Western Frontier. Both pairs took still and motion pictures in the New Hebrides and Solomon Islands which they used to illustrate magazine articles, travelogue books and silent films, including the Johnsons’ Cannibals of the South Seas [1918] and Head Hunters of the South Seas [1922], and Salisbury and Cooper's Gow the Head Hunter [1928]. Differences in their print and motion imagery of islanders reflect the newer movie aesthetic, stimulating new ways to shoot Melanesians as spectators, as actors and as occasional filmmakers themselves.