Eardward Muybridge Modern Designer

Eadweard Muybridge immigrated to the USA around 1852 , where he became a book dealer.

After a stagecoach accident in Texas in 1860, he returned to England, where he took up photography.

By 1867 he was back in California. Muybridge made his name as a photographer with a successful series of views, Scenery of the Yosemite Valley, published in 1868.

In 1871, he met and married Flora Downs Shallcross, a former photography assistant.

Muybridge met Leland Stanford, when he came to take photographs of his mansion.

Stanford was the wealthy former president of the Central Pacific Railroad, and former Governor of California, and he had a keen interest in horse racing. At the time, there was an ongoing argument about whether a galloping horse ever had all four legs off the ground at once.

Stanford took the position that the legs did leave the ground and hired Muybridge to try and prove it with his photography.Muybridge told Stanford, it couldn't be done (photography of the day required a typical 15 to 60 second minimum exposure), but Stanford believed that with enough money and effort, Muybridge could accomplish the task.

In the mean time Muybridge kills his wife’s lover and Stanford pays for his legal representation.

It took require five years and $50,000 but they are able to develop lenses

In 1878, Stanford invited the press to the Palo Alto Stock Farm, where Muybridge had rigged a series of cameras to wires set to expose Stanford's horse as it would break the tripwires. The 21 cameras were positioned opposite a white canvas at a 20° angle marked with lines to show horizontal and vertical positioning. The series of images was an immediate sensation.

Muybridge takes the ZOE trope on the road to Europe.

Stanford publishes a book on horses without Muybridge. Muybridge is not very happy about it, but

in 1884 he was able to begin work at the University of Pennsylvania using elaborate banks of cameras to analyse animal and human motion by means of photographs. He took over 100,000 photographs, 20,000 of which were reproduced in his own major publication, Animal Locomotion

This 11-volume work had a tremendous impact, not least on artists, who were forced to reassess completely the manner in which they depicted movement