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Eadward Muybridge, a pioneer of stop-motion photography and early filmmaking, an inventive photographer and a technical wizard, known mainly for his early use of multiple cameras to capture motion. Muybridge was the first to show action photographs in one of the primitive motion-picture machines and he was the most significant contributor to the early study of human and animal locomotion.


The zoopraxiscope was developed by him, which projected a series of images in successive phases of movement obtained through the use of multiple cameras. In his most famous motion studies, a row of cameras snapped a dozen or more photographs of a passing horse; the public was astonished to see proof that a trotting horse can simultaneously have all four hooves off the ground.


Muybridge's work was specifically created for the purpose of stopping action. It was analytical; he strove to freeze motion, to hold still for our contemplation the most rapid muscular movements of man and beast.In doing so he was unwittingly creating the basis for moving pictures. All that was necessary to recreate the motion he had analyzed was to put the individual photographs in rapid succession before the eyes of an audience. His experiments in photographing rapid action are landmarks in the history of photography and early version of the motion picture.




Music by Philip Glass from the dedicated album "Photografer" to Eadweard Muybridge.