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I just took another look at these photos and realized that these are probably exposure/composite tests.

These are probably original in-camera tests of shots that were later completed but not used in the final cut (perhaps they were used in the test film). It does appear that Bruce Cabot was establishing a sight line for one of the composites. In the other the Kong puppet and the jungle set behind Kong are the same as in the final release of Kong.

The aspect ratio of the photos makes me think 35mm motion picture film also and almost all of the, so-called, outtakes that I've ever seen of Kong have been test shots like these, done for exposure, alignment and matte tests.

Those who do not require as much detailed explanation of matte shots and their history can skip the following explanation that is provided for the purpose of including a wider range of  forum contributors.

Split screen composite explanation: In the early production shots of KONG, O'Brien insisted upon in-camera composites (later, Linwood Dunn convinced O'Brien to use his newly developed optical camera to do composites). These scenes are some of the earliest scenes shot for Kong (they were shot for the 10 min. test real created to convince executives to finance Kong). A split screen is where you mask (or matte) a portion of the screen with black (so it won't expose on film) and then when you shoot the other half of the composite you mask (or counter matte) the portion that you had already exposed and expose only the unexposed part. Usually the cameraman would run off extra footage (not to be used in the actual completed shot) of the first part of the matte shot before shooting the action to be used in the final shot. This way you could set up the counter matte and run a test of just a couple of feet of film (using the extra footage that was not used in the completed composite) in order to test the exposure and the matte lines (like the bad, blurry one on Kong's hand in the long shot). If the exposure or matte lines were bad you had several more feet of film to do additional tests for exposure and matte lines before doing the finished composite using the good take that the director chose.