Eadweard Muybridge was born 9th April 1830 in Kingston upon Thames. He was an English photographer and was responsible for developing the way in which motion was captured at an early stage.
He started out as a landscape and architectural photographer. His earliest work documented in 1866 in this field. Most of his work was aimed at capturing how expansive the West was. During this time he lived in San Francisco.
However it is his work during 1872 that interests me most. In this year he was commissioned to photograph a horse in motion. The idea was to answer the question of whether all four of a horses hooves are off the ground at the same time during a gallop.
A series of images he had taken are shown below. An impressive result for such early photogaphy.
To do this Muybridge devised a new method for motion photography. He constructed long shed, containing twelve cameras side by side, facing a white background marked off with vertical, numbered lines. Each camera was fitted with Muybridge's high-speed shutter, released by an electromagnetic catch. Thin threads stretched across the track were broken by the horse as it moved along, this would trigger each shutter in turn. This enabled twelve photographs to be taken in half a second showing all the phases of the movement. For another method of setting of the shutters, electrical contacts embedded in the track could be triggered by the wheels of a sulky (horse-drawn vehicle) passing over them.
We can see from above that without the contribution from artists such as Muybridge todays photography would not be possible.
Hi
ReplyDeleteYou really need to expand upon your research to make sure you are looking at a variety through the ages, I can help you here.
you need to look at around 5 photographers as a minimum really and collect galleries of images so you can talk about what you like about their images.
come and see me about it.
this will help you meet 1.1, 1.2, and 1,7.
steve