Spirit of Aloha | Features | May/June 2007

Diversions
By: Joseph Theroux

Hawai‘i in Glass and Stereo

PHOTO: Brenda Zaun, USFWS PHOTO:Brenda Zaun, USFWS

In 1886, King David Kaläkaua and his “Minister of Everything,” Walter Mur­ray Gibson, appointed Joseph Dwight Strong government artist to the ill-fated Ka‘i­miloa expedition to Samoa. Strong, however, known as an oil portraitist and land­scape artist, had learned photography as a boy, and in the 1870 census taken on Cape Cod, where his family was then living, the 17-year-old had listed his profession as “photographer.” In­deed, some years later, when his fa­ther retired from preaching, the Rev. Joseph took his younger son, Mark, along in a “photog­raphy wagon” throughout South­ern California. Mark Strong later set up his own studio in Napa.

Strong packed for Samoa, taking his pencils and paint box. He also packed his Kodak box camera and glass negatives, and, as things turned out, he would spend more time taking photos than sketching. He was one of the earliest painters in Hawai‘i to use the camera as a tool in his artwork. He took scores of photos of the Hawaiian delegation, Samoan life and scenery, and several of his Samoan mistress, Fa‘apio.

When he returned to Honolulu in the fall of 1886, the photos went on sale at the studio of J.J. Williams at 104 Fort St. For many months, the advertisement “Samoan Views” ran in the Pacific Commercial Advertiser. The photos were de­scribed as “a series of views of Samoan Life and Character and His­torical Incidents connected with the Ha­waiian Mis­sion to Samoa.” Indeed, many of the portraits of the Hawaiian diplomats and Samoan chiefs were taken on the deck of the rolling Ka‘imiloa, yet they are professionally done, historically important and revealing of character.

A Nov. 26 article in the newspaper described the exhibit as “extremely in­teresting” and “of great artistic merit.” The collection, some four dozen photographs, survives in Honolulu at the State Archives behind ‘Iolani Palace and at the Bienecke Library at Yale Uni­versity in New Haven, Conn., where it is titled “A Samoan Scrapbook.” Yet, de­spite documented evidence of Strong as the photographer, neither institution gives him credit for the collection. The State Archives’ online catalog actually states “photographers not identified.” Back in Hawai‘i, Strong continued his photography. Though there were several studios with photo labs available in Hono­lulu, he developed his own prints. In April 1889, Robert Louis Stev­enson, the stepfather of Strong’s wife, Isobel, de­scribed his studio on Nu‘u­anu Avenue: “You go in and find photography, tubs of water, negatives steeping, a tap, and a chair and an ink bottle, and a table sticky with paints.” Other Honolulu artists became adept “camera men.” Charles Furneaux, originally from Melrose, Mass., arrived in Hawai‘i in July 1880 to illustrate the erupt­ing volcano for Dr. William Brig­ham’s proposed study. Though his photographs proved unable to capture the fire in the craters, and he later painted them to great success, Furneaux nevertheless continued his efforts with photography. He was among the first to de­pict Japanese camp and family scenes, always adding an artistic touch. Later in life he gave it all up due to failing eyesight.

J.J. Williams, who published and advertised Strong’s Samoa photos, was himself an accomplished photographer, and founded Paradise of the Pacific magazine in 1888. Studios had thrived in Honolulu since the 1860s, as it was far cheaper to have a portrait made on glass than on canvas. Joan Abramson’s Photographers of Old Hawai‘i (Island Heritage Ltd., Honolulu, 1976) describes many 19th-century photographers, in­cluding On Char, Hugo Stangen­wald, Caroline Gurrey and Ray Jerome Baker.

Studio camera artists differed from outdoor photographers in the same way studio painters differed from plein-air artists, and the contrasts of both fields occurred at roughly the same time. The outdoor artists risked the variables of light and weather, as opposed to the con­trolled conditions of the studio. But the rewards were greater: While Hono­lulu studios used a static cloth backdrop depicting Diamond Head or a co­co­nut grove, those daring enough to lug their equipment outside were granted lush landscapes and natural settings, innumerable models of great variety, plantation workers, skipping children, men on horseback, and the rhythms of daily life.

One of the most accomplished and well-known photographers of Hawai‘i was the cherubic-faced Ray Jerome Baker, who first discovered the magical Island setting while vacationing in Honolulu in 1908. Baker photographed everything from mat weavers to celebrities to the rice paddies at Pearl City. Intensely curious, he photographed trop­ical fruit and tropical flowers, old prints and ancient maps. Over the years, he documented the history and architecture of Honolulu, re­cording images of every major building and significant home in the city.

In 1944, Tongg Publishing brought out a small pamphlet book of Baker’s photos, called Scenic Hawai‘i—A Collection of Unusual Photos of the Hawaiian Islands. It cost a dollar, and now is worth 50 times that. In fact, Baker published more than a dozen books in his lifetime, including a memoir, Odyssey of a Cameraman (1960), and a photographic biog­raphy of Prin­cess Ka‘iulani (1954). Though he traveled the world and retired in 1959, he is most remembered for his Hawai‘i work. He was also a tireless researcher, cataloging many of the historic photos of Hawai‘i and interviewing people who had known the old studio artists. In the 1950s, he donated all of his Island negatives and many prints to the Bishop Museum. A Ray Jerome Baker Room was designated in his honor at the Bishop Ar­chives, now a haven for re­searchers and visitors alike. Visi­tors to the Islands could purchase images or create their own. The first Kodak Brownie cameras, appearing in February 1900, made the expertise avail­able to every tourist off the steamers. They were marketed as easy to use, even by children: Just point and shoot. And the manufacturer would develop them for you—no more in-home labs.

Due to the anonymity of the creators, picture postcards have not reached the level of artistic appreciation eventually bestowed on early photographers and their work. But photographic postcards of Hawai‘i and other Pacific islands were hugely popular and constitute a largely ignored body of work, and a source of pleasure to collectors who are unable to afford prints, paintings or even original photos of recognized artists.

In addition to picture postcards, another kind of photog-raphy is largely ignored by students of the art. “Stere­oview” images, invented in the mid-1900s, were the equivalent of today’s Internet, giving everybody the chance to view foreign scenes in their own home. Companies like Keystone, Un­der­wood & Underwood and World Series sent their photographers around the world with contraptions that were basically double cameras, each shooting the same subject from a slightly dif-ferent angle. The resulting double photo was then slid into a hand-held viewer; one peered into a box that was contoured to the face. The result was a surprising 3-D image, which also depicted comic scenes or historic tableaux. The wooden viewers are now rare, but bundles of stereoviews—those double images—are available at antique shops across the country.

Stereoviews of Hawai‘i and the South Pacific especially found wide appeal, depicting exotic Polynesians and popular tropical vistas. Although the itinerant photographers who traveled the islands for stereoview companies, newspapers and steamship companies are now forgotten, their work has been immortalized in countless postcards and stereoviews. Their images of Diamond Head, hula dancers and Hawaiian scenes may be uncredited, but today they survive in collections worldwide.

JOSEPH THEROUX is a public school administrator on the Big Island who writes on aspects of Hawai‘i and Pacific history..

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