Sequential Image Research

Eadweard Muybridge

Bird in flight,1887
From the series Animal Locomotion
390mm x 494mm
Source: Bird in flight 

Eadweard Muybridge is a British Photographer known as his pioneering work in photographic studies of motion and in motion-picture projection. By that time, everyone in the world was vowed by photography's ability to record the visible world. Eadweard Muybridge was not among of them. He was thinking something more advance, it seemed, Muybridge wanted to capture what the human eye missed - a trot to fast to see, a 360 panorama, a rushing waterfall, a bird in flight (as above). 

Horse jumping a fence with rider (1887)
Source: Eadweard Muybridge

Animal Locomotion, Plate 626 (1887)
Source: Animal Locomotion 

I personally summarize that Eadweard Muybridge has taken his keen into taking a fast trot horse. After doing a research, all of this photo have their backstory. An article wrote that: "  Stanford, who was also a railroad tycoon and racehorse aficionado, subscribed to the yet-unproven theory that, at some point in the running motion of a horse, all four of its legs left the ground completely so that the animal was completely suspended in the air. Stanford wanted Muybridge to capture this moment in the horse’s stride, an instance imperceptible to the naked eye. Muybridge told him he was crazy—no camera shutter could move that fast—but later accepted the challenge to produce one that could."(National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.)

I am amazed that Muybridge accepted the challenge because it was considered impossible to capture a quick motion of animal with a old vintage camera. The material and method that he use to make those picture possible was interesting. The camera exposures were in rapid succession by means of threads attached to cameras placed about half a meter apart. The camera shutter was activated when the horse broke the thread while going past. 

It was absolute mind blowing that how brilliant he was using the environment as the materials of way taking a motion photography. I admire him as he has the audacity of doing something seems impossible but proven it possible by the results.  

References

The Editors of Encyclopedia Britannica. “Eadweard Muybridge | British Photographer.” Encyclopædia Britannica, 6 May 2018, www.britannica.com/biography/Eadweard-Muybridge. (Accessed 17 January 2024)

Mann, Jon. “The Photographer Who Gave Us the Moving Image.” Artsy, 10 Jan. 2018, www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-eadweard-muybridge-moving-image. (Accessed 17 January 2024)

            Muybridge, Eadweard. “Bird in Flight.” Victoria & Albert Museum, 1887, collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O169780/bird-in-flight-photograph-muybridge-eadweard/#:~:text=This%20sequence%20of%20photographs%20is. Accessed 17 Jan. 2024.