Edweard Muybridge

Muybridge and his influence on stop motion

and achievements in photography

Eadweard Muybridge (Edward James Muggeridge, Muggeridge Muybridge Helios Florado Muybridge Eduardo Santiargo Muybridge)  was a pioneer of photography in the latter 1900s, applying his skills on both sides of the Atlantic, born on the side of the river Thames to a family of coal merchants.  With the prospects of taking over the family business Muybridge travelled to America for greater prospects.  Initially worked as a bookseller in San Francisco before selling up to his brother. With the intentions of returning to the UK. Unfortunately on the way Muybridge stagecoach crashed landing at the bottom of a ditch, sustaining some sort of head injury. Muybridge stayed in hospital for three months recovering from double vision and impaired senses, a year after the crash Muybridge returned to Europe for final treatment, here Muybridge took up the hobby of photography, for the next six years Muybridge traveled Europe learning his new hobby from the best photographers as well as landscape painters of the time.  In 1867 Muybridge returned to America as a landscape and architecture photographer. Where his fame emerged with the lighthouse series. Due to the complicated manipulation of the images and the story the pictures portrays.  Muybridge once described it as tedious and careful manipulation.  The Photoshop of the day, a dark room came in the form of a converted stagecoach, as the negatives needed to be processed  on site since they dried out quickly.  

The Yosemite Valley in California is where his photography gained fame as he showed the grand nature and expanses of the wilderness, especially when people became dwarfs to the height of the mountain landscape.  Muybridge was a perfectionist and would take out anything which stood in the way of the perfect picture, regularly cutting down large areas of trees to get the shot. His fame was due to the industrial revolution at the same time, wealthy people saw the un-tamed wilderness as fashionable, with everyone wanting a piece of his work.

Professionally life couldn’t be any better he had found work fame for his photography but at home it couldn’t have been any different his wife Flora half his age was pregnant with their first and only child, Flora was a quite flirt resulting in an affair with Major Harry Lankyns possible father to their son Florado. In October 1874 Muybridge tracked down the Major, upon finding him Muybridge said “Good evening, Major, my name is Muybridge and here’s your answer to the letter you sent my wife” shooting him 1” from his left nipple.  Muybridge was arrested and tried for murder. Where he was found not guilty of the charges although he stated his actions was deliberate and pre meditated.

Shortly after he was acquitted Muybridge left the United States on a pre-planned 9 month trip to Central America documenting the coffee plantations. Arriving back in America Muybridge reunited with an old friend former governor Leland Stanford a race horse owner to find out weather for sure all four feet of an horse are of the ground at the same time when trotting.  The human eye itself couldn’t break down the action of a horse with all four feet of the ground. In 1872 Muybridge showed and settled Stanford’s question with a single negative of his horse Occident with all four hooves of the floor.  Muybridge achieved this feet by setting out a course of a white background and floor to contrast the horse to prove the theory eliminating doubt from peers. With the technology of the time cameras was very basic with a manual shutter after the set exposure, Muybridge knew if he wanted to prove this theory he had to create an automatic shutter, When he did, the shutter consisted of a box with a black slide which dropped covering the lens of the camera, the shutter was activated when the horse broke the string on the course, Muybridge also knew one camera would get the shot required, on the course he created at Stanford’s stables he set up 24 cameras in a row with the hope of capturing the horse in flight.

After his discovery of stop motion and then his passing in 1904, he became an large influence on people creating films such as the Matrix, using the same process but with modern technology. Thomas Edison was also influenced by Muybridge as he further developed the slow-motion camera.