Muybridge

=Eadweard Muybridge’s Photography of Motion= []

Between 1884 and 1887, Muybridge used a style of photography known as Freeze Frame to study the motion of animals and humans. Using images to capture split seconds of movement, he was able to photograph motion that was previously unperceivable to the human eye. Although Muybridge primarily viewed himself as an artist, his photographs led to a large amount of scientific study. Before publishing his photography, there was a lot of debate about whether or not all four hooves came off the ground when a horse was galloping. There were two theories- 1) The horse always had at least one leg planted on the ground while galloping 2) If the horse did have all four legs off the ground, it was when the leg’s were outstretched in a “rocking horse” stance

After carefully studying the motion sequences, it became clear that the horse did indeed have all four legs off the ground at one point while galloping. However, at this point, the horse has all legs tucked underneath his body. To capture these images, Muybridge set a line of cameras parallel to the horse’s running track. Each camera was controlled by thin wires, which were triggered by the horse’s hooves.

After a lifetime of studying, we are left with 781 Muybridge sequences. However, contemporaries believe that Muybridge freely edited his work to perfect his results. How much editing was done is unknown, but still leaves question to the validity of his work.