Eadweard Muybridge and Leland
Stanford
Photographer Eadward Muybridge may not
have realized it but he created a whole new world for entertainment when he photographed a
flying horse.
Leland Stanford’s passion was horses.
For him, the racetrack demonstration would culminate in five
years of experiments with photographer Eadweard Muybridge. Leland Stanford was
debating whether during a horse's trot, all four hooves were ever off the ground at the
same time? Stanford insisted the answer was
yes.
It was
in 1872 Stanford approached Eadweard James Muybridge and asked his assistance in
proving that theory using newly invented photographic technology.
Sequential Photography
Leland Stanford's horse Occident,
becomes the first movie star.
In 1877, using cameras separated along a
racetrack, Muybridge photographed one of Stanford's prize horses, Occident. He
developed the use of a super-fast shutter in order to get many photographic exposures.
These photographs were triggered by a carefully times
trip wire. The results of this innovate way to capture movement succeeded in proving that
horses could indeed fly. This project, which illustrated motion through a series of still
images viewed together, was a antecedent of motion picture technology.
Later, Eadweard Muybridge
increased the number of cameras he was using, developing a more sophisticated
triggering device for the shutter and began photographing other kinds of animals and
humans.
The Zoopraxiscope
In 1879 Muybridge invented a projector,
the
zoopraxiscope, (zoogyroscope) to view the fast series of
images in a way that imitated movement.
The stop-action photos were reproduced using paint on a glass disc that rotated to create the
illusion of movement.
Motion Picture
In 1880, Muybridge projected his pictures on a
screen at the California School of Fine Arts, San Francisco. Motion pictures were born...
Master
of Photography
Muybridge was saluted as a photographic
magician, Stanford was undoubtedly his visionary sponsor
and supporter. This unlikely collaboration was, in Muybridge's words,
"an exceptionally felicitous alliance,"
