Eadweard Muybridge (1830-1904) was one of the earliest pioneers in the field of photography to develop a way of capturing complex ranges of motions with film. Today he is probably most famous for stringing together a boatload of cameras and setting them off in sequence in order to settle one of the most burning questions of his time: when a horse gallops, is there ever a moment in which all four hooves are off the ground?
Horse Galloping
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The natural outgrowth of his experiments in capturing motion with film was a device he called the zoopraxiscope, which helped bridge the gap between still photography and video. Think “flipbook on a spinning wheel,” and you won’t be too far off.
Muybridge is also interesting in that he killed a man and got away with it. In fact, everyone’s favorite minimalist composer, Philip Glass, composed an opera about the incident. From the Wikipedia article on The Photographer:
In 1874, still living in the San Francisco Bay Area, Muybridge discovered that his wife had a lover, a Major Harry Larkyns. On October 17, 1874, he sought out Larkyns; said, “Good evening, Major, my name is Muybridge and here is the answer to the letter you sent my wife”; and shot and killed him. He was put on trial for the killing, but acquitted of the killing on the grounds that it was “justifiable homicide.” This incident marked the last time an admitted murder in passion in California was not to be punished except by reason of insanity
Buffalo Galloping
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Woman Walking
Baboon Walking
This is Part One of a series of posts about the origins of cinema. Part Two discusses Thomas Alva Edison. Part Three discusses Louis Le Prince. Part Four discusses the Lumière Brothers.