My World Tuesday Mr and Mrs Johnson

Osa and Martin Johnson (photo borrowed from their website.)

Way before Marlin Perkins, Steve Erwin and other well known wildlife cinematographers there was the Johnsons, Osa and Martin. Both Kansas kids they sought adventure, fame and fortune in the early twentieth century filming regions that were just becoming open to the industrialized world. Martin took off with Jack London to cruise around the world when he was in his early twenties, returned and married Osa. They then set out together. In Chanute Kansas I found their museum.

Here's an excerpt from their website: "In the first half of the 20th century an American couple from Kansas named Martin and Osa Johnson captured the public's imagination through their films and books of adventure in exotic, far-away lands...Photographers, explorers, naturalists and authors, Martin and Osa studied the wildlife and peoples of East and Central Africa, the South Pacific Islands and British North Borneo...They explored then unknown lands and brought back knowledge of cultures thousands of miles away through their films, writings and lectures.

From 1917-1936, the Johnsons set up camp in some of the most remote areas of the world and provided an unmatched photographic record of the wildernesses of Kenya, the Congo, British North Borneo and the Solomon and New Hebrides Islands...Their equipment was the most advanced motion pictures apparatus of the day, some of it designed by Martin Johnson himself.

When the young adventurers left their home in Kansas to explore and photograph these lands, little did they realize that they would provide the world with a photographic record of the African game of unimagined magnitude and beauty...The Johnsons gave the filmmakers and researchers of today an important source of ethnological and zoological material which would otherwise have been lost.

Their photographs represent one of the great contributions to the pictorial history of the world...Their films serve to document a wilderness that has long since vanished, tribal cultures and customs that ceased to exist." Read more here



Watching their films I did cringe once or twice when a lion or other animal was killed, I began to think about the difference in our attitudes about wildlife conservation in this century. They had no zoom lenses so they were in close most of the time with a rifle ready for protection if things went bad, technology today frees us from making this decision. Teddy Roosevelt was a wildlife conservationist whom I admire as was Audubon but both thought is very acceptable to shoot and stuff. The Johnsons lived in a different time and left a record of work that influenced a changing world view in our relationship with the natural world I think in a positive way.
They also influenced our view the whole genre of the great jungle adventure movies. Think about the Tarzan movies we watched as kids in black and white, right up to Indiana Jones. The Johnsons work influenced in some way all of these.
The museum also houses a wonderful exhibit of African Art including some really outstanding masks. All donated by other folks to the museum.

Its a great museum if you are ever in Chanute Kansas its worth the stop.

be sure and visit the My World site to check out other participants and join in the fun.