Eadweard Muybridge, Plate 517 – Miscellaneous movements with a water jar, 1887

Eadweard Muybridge

Eadweard Muybridge, originally a landscape and architectural photographer, is primarily known for his groundbreaking images of animals and people in motion. In 1872, a racehorse owner hired Muybridge to prove that galloping horses’ hooves were never all fully off the ground at the same time, a proposition that Muybridge's images would disprove. One of his main working methods was to rig a series of large cameras in a line to shoot images automatically as the subjects passed by. Viewed in a Zoopraxiscope machine, his images laid the foundation for motion pictures and contemporary cinematography.