Eadweard Muybridge: Photographer

 Eadweard Muybridge, known for his animated photographs

Eadward Muybridge was a photographer, -and an artist- born in England, known mainly for his early use of multiple cameras to capture motion. He used the zoopraxiscope, a device for projecting motion pictures that pre-dated the celluloid film strip which is still used today.

A phenakistoscope disc in motion

This device took a disc that was mounted vertically on a handle and spun it. A series of pictures, drawn to correspond with the frames of the animation, were placed around the inside of the disc. People could spin the disc and see the disc's reflection in a mirror. As the disc turned the images magically moved..

Eadward Muybridge Photographs

Eadward Muybridge started his career in San Francisco as a publisher's agent and bookseller in 1855. In 1866 he had started working as a photographer and became very successful in the profession.

In 1872, a businessman and race horse owner, Leland Stanford, was debating whether during a horse's trot, all four hooves were ever off the ground at the same time. He wanted to find out scientifically. Stanford hired Eadweard Muybridge for that task.

Eadweard Muybridge developed a scheme for instantaneous motion picture capture. Muybridge's technology involved chemical formulas for photographic processing and an electrical trigger. Basic Sequential photography

Edward Muybridge settled the question in 1877 with a single photograph showing Stanford's racehorse Occident airborne during trot. The Muybridge horse became famous overnight and he would become one of the masters of photography.
 

 

The Zoopraxiscope  

Then Eadward Muybridge invented the zoopraxiscope. The zoopraxiscope projected images from rotating glass disks in rapid succession to give the impression of motion. The images were initially painted onto the glass, as silhouettes. A second series of discs, used outline drawings printed onto the discs photographically, then colored by hand. The system was, in many ways, an early version of the motion picture, early cinema, and roll film.

Edweard Muybridge visited Étienne Jules de Marey. He visited Marey’s studio in France and saw his stop-motion studies before continuing to improve his own work in the same area.

Edward Muybridge then made disks for the phenakistoscope (also spelled phenakistiscope), a toy used to view short motion sequences. A spinning disc was mounted vertically on a handle. Around the center of the disc was a series of pictures drawn corresponding to frames of the animation. You would spin the disc and look at the disc's reflection in a mirror.

The word "phenakistoscope" comes from Greek meaning "to cheat", as it deceives the eye by making the pictures look like they are in animation.

Muybridge later adapted his stills to fit the zoetrope, a children's toy -also known as "the wheel of life"- that used persistence of vision (i.e., the brain's facility to blend images into continuous movement)

Muybridge discs

Shown here are a few of the works of Eadweard Muybridge. This galley shows you the disks that are available to be perches through out store.

Now you can create your own Muybridge optical toy!

Remember:
You can't buy these reproduction
prints anywhere else!

Register to WIN a FREE Art Print! No purchace nessesarry. Monthly Winners!  Name  Your Primary Email: