Eadweard Muybridge

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American photographer (1830–1904)

Muybridge was born Edward James Muggeridge at Kingston-on-Thames in Surrey. He changed his surname and forename in his early twenties, the latter after the Saxon kings who were crowned at Kingston in the 10th century. Although Muybridge spent much of his life in America, making his first trip there in 1852, he always retained links with his birthplace. Indeed, following a serious stagecoach accident in 1860 he returned to England to recuperate from his injuries.

By 1867 Muybridge was back in America, working as partner to the San Francisco-based photographer, Carleton E. Watson, and he quickly established a reputation as a skilled exponent of landscapes with a series of prints taken in California's Yosemite Valley. In 1868 he was appointed director of photographic surveys for the US Government, and undertook photographic surveys of several remote regions, including the ports and harbors of newly purchased Alaska.

An interest in high-speed photography can be traced to the year 1872, when Muybridge was commissioned by the wealthy Californian racehorse owner, Leland Stanford, to attempt to settle the contentious issue of whether a trotting or galloping horse lifted all four feet clear of the ground at any point during its stride. Muybridge's attempts to capture this on film were of poor quality and less than convincing.

In October 1874 Muybridge's personal life was shattered when he was arrested for the murder of his wife's lover, whom Muybridge suspected was the father of the son born in April that year. Muybridge was held in prison for several months, but after a lengthy trial he was acquitted in February 1875. His wife, who had unsuccessfully sued for divorce, died later that year, leaving Muybridge to support the child.

Following a trip to Central America in 1875, and a dramatic panoramic sequence of pictures taken of San Francisco in 1877, Muybridge returned to his attempts at high-speed photography. He developed a more efficient shutter mechanism for the camera, and by using a battery of 12 cameras he was able to produce 12 sharply defined consecutive images of a galloping horse, all taken within half a second.

It was readily apparent that if such a sequence of pictures were viewed in rapid succession, the motion of the horse or other subject would be reproduced. Muybridge mounted the silhouettes of the horse on a glass disk, which was rotated and projected onto a screen through a device invented by the photographer and called a ‘zoopraxiscope’. This was first demonstrated to the public in 1880, in what some would claim to be the first moving picture.

Muybridge's work was by now attracting considerable scientific interest, and in 1884 he began work at the University of Pennsylvania on what was to prove a celebrated series of high-speed studies of movement in both animals and human subjects. His new multilens camera could take 12 pictures on a single photographic plate in as little as one-fifth of a second. The results of this work were published in 11 volumes as Animal Locomotion: an electro-photographic investigation of consecutive phases of animal movement (1887). Included in this were his famous sequences of nude human subjects, often performing bizarre actions such as carrying a pan of water and sweeping with a broom.

The technique used by Muybridge could produce only very short sequences of moving pictures in the zoopraxiscope. However, the American inventor Thomas Edison was impressed by them, and may have found in them inspiration for his own invention, the cine camera and its perforated roll film. Certainly Muybridge and Edison collaborated on an abortive attempt to match sound to Muybridge's picture sequences.

Muybridge returned to Kingston in 1900, and spent his final years there. He bequeathed his zoopraxiscope and other apparatus to the public library in his home town.

(b Kingston-on-Thames, 9 April 1830; d Kingston-on-Thames, 8 May 1904). English photographer, active in the USA. He was the first to analyse motion successfully by using a sequence of photographs and resynthesizing them to produce moving pictures on a screen. His work has been described as the inspiration behind the invention of the motion picture.

See the Abbreviations for further details.

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One of the most innovative pioneers of photography, Eadweard Muybridge (1830-1904) is perhaps best known as the man who proved that a horse has all four hooves off the ground at the peak of a gallop. He is also regarded as the inventor of a motion-picture technique, from which twentieth cinematography has developed.

Muybridge was born Edward James Muggeridge on April 9, 1830, in the town of Kingston-on-Thames in Surrey, England. When he was 20 years old, he changed his first name to conform to the Saxon spelling and a possible Spanish lineage; he became "Eadweard." His surname was altered in stages; it went from Muggeridge to Muygridge and finally Muybridge.

Relocated to San Francisco

Despite his affinity for British antiques, styles, and customs, Muybridge saw his future in the United States. After a brief stay in London, he immigrated to the United States in 1851. He found work as a commission merchant, initially for the London Printing and Publishing Company and later for Johnson, Fry and Company (for whom he acted as business agent). He was involved in the importation from England of unbound books, which were then bound, sold, and distributed in America. By all accounts, Muybridge was a good businessman who, in just a few years, had set himself up nicely.

During this time he made the acquaintance of Silas T. Selleck, a daguerreotypist (a photographer who makes a photo on a plate of chemically-treated metal or glass). Selleck, no doubt, opened up the world of the image to Muybridge. In the meantime, gold fever infected Selleck, who headed west. He eventually established a photography studio in San Francisco, and the lure of California became stronger to Muybridge. In 1855, he decided to join his friend.

By the time Muybridge arrived, the first boom of the great California gold rush had subsided and San Francisco itself was in a recession. An astute businessman, Muybridge still managed to thrive. He opened a bookstore downtown through which he sold material supplied to him by the London Printing and Publishing Company. Above the bookstore he opened an office as the commission merchant for the company.

Muybridge's business opened up new avenues to him. He became a board member of San Francisco's Mercantile Library Association, which promoted reading by sponsoring a library and lectures, and San Francisco's intellectuals frequented his business. He also brought his two younger brothers, first George (who died in 1858), then Tom to San Francisco.

By the late 1850s, Muybridge's attention began to turn away from business. Travel in California and new techniques in photography had spurred his interest in landscape photography. Muybridge was not a pioneer in this field. The photographs of Charles L. Weed, Robert Vance, and Carleton Watkins were already for sale in San Francisco. Still Muybridge hoped to photograph California more extensively than they had done. Subsequently, he gave up both his businesses. The bookstore was turned over to a music publisher, while his brother Tom became the San Francisco commission merchant for the London Printing and Publishing Company.

After giving up his businesses, Muybridge set out on an extended trip to Europe. His plan was to travel east via stagecoach, before sailing abroad. Along the way, the stagecoach crashed and Muybridge was injured. He remained unconscious for several days. His vision and senses of taste and smell were affected. Arriving in New York City, he sued the company, and then sought medical treatment in London. He briefly returned to New York to settle his lawsuit, but eventually returned to Kingston-on-Thames to recuperate further.

While in Kingston-on-Thames, Muybridge befriended Arthur Brown, a man who furthered Muybridge's already keen interest in photography. Muybridge at this time also tried his hand at invention and improvement on already existing patents. He himself sought a patent on a washing machine and though it was never granted, Muybridge did receive other patents in the United States and England.

In his book Muybridge: Man in Motion, Robert Bartlett Haas describes this time period (1860-66) as Muybridge's "lost years." In fact, Muybridge was really developing a plan. He devoted more and more time to his craft just as new photographic techniques were being developed. He eventually decided the United States, as both subject and market, offered the best opportunity for a budding photographer.

Full-Time Photographer

Muybridge made his way back to San Francisco, now much changed and even more to his liking. If he had had any second thoughts about returning to his old business ventures, they quickly vanished. He was now a professional photographer, and briefly shared a studio with his old friend, Selleck.

He first concentrated on scenes of San Francisco, a city of approximately 200,000 people in 1870. He began taking cityscape photographs of San Francisco in 1867 and would continue to do so until 1881. Many of Muybridge's early photos were of San Francisco Bay from various vantage points, but he also took numerous photographs of city life, notably the architecture. Among his better known photographs at this time were "Pacific Bank, Sansome Street," "Merchant's Exchange, California Street," "Montgomery Block," "Montgomery Street, north from California," "Maguire's Opera House," "Trinity Church and Jewish Synagogue," "The Cliff House," "Russian Hill from Telegraph Hill," and " Montgomery and Market Street, Fourth of July." These photos reflect the growing city, as it emerged to become the most important cities in California.

In 1872 and 1873, Muybridge began to photograph what has become his signature series, a galloping horse. Legend has it that a $25,000 wager between former California Governor Leland Stanford and a rival was involved, but Muybridge's own account makes no mention of the bet. It is believed that Stanford hoped to use the information to breed and train better race horses, while Muybridge was interested was in animal locomotion. But as the Masters of Photography website noted that "The experiments were interrupted when Muybridge was tried in 1874 for murdering his wife's lover.

Marriage and Murder

In 1872, Muybridge married Flora Stone, 22 years his junior, whom he had met when she had worked as a photographic re-toucher at another studio. Their brief marriage would culminate in one of the city's biggest scandals of the decade. Into their circle came Harry Larkyns, a former major in the British army who in 1873, had become theater critic for the San Francisco Post. Larkyns possessed all of the outgoing qualities Muybridge lacked, and it wasn't long before he had thoroughly charmed Flora.

While Muybridge also returned to his original photographic purpose, taking photographs in America's Northwest, Flora and Larkyns became lovers. Muybridge ideas expanded, and he photographed members of the Modoc tribe, Vancouver Island, and Alaska, as well as produced a series of photographs that followed the Central Pacific and Union Pacific railroads from San Francisco to Omaha, Nebraska. Meanwhile, back in san Francisco, Flora became pregnant, and Larkyns was rumored to be the true father of her child.

When the rumors as well as the with near undeniable evidence came back to Muybridge, he set out to kill Larkyns who had already fled San Francisco. In October of 1874, Muybridge shot and killed Larkyns. He was indicted for premeditated murder, and his trial was held in early 1875. He was found not guilty after a short trial.

Muybridge decided he needed a change of scenery and decided to take his camera to Central America. He spent 1875-76 primarily in Guatemala and Panama, concentrating his camera lens on cities such as Colon, Panama City, and Guatemala City, as well as the surrounding countryside, which yielded completely fresh subject matter.

While he was in Central America, Flora died and her child, Floredo, was placed in an orphanage. Upon his return to California, Muybridge learned of her death. Though he was convinced he was not the boy's father, he did regularly visit Floredo at the orphanage. In 1877, Muybridge resumed his work with Stanford.

Muybridge photographed Stanford's racehorse, named Occident. The purpose of the photos was to determine whether all four of a horse's hooves are off the ground at some point in a gallop. Muybridge had already developed automatic shutters, which he then set up in a dozen cameras along a Sacramento racecourse. (The Washington Post noted that "Muybridge's studies are so cleanly, almost starkly, done that it's easy to forget the endless drudgery involved.) As Occident galloped past, the horse tripped wires that were connected to the shutters. The photo series of Occident proved that all four of a horse's hooves are off the ground at some point.

In 1877, Muybridge photographed another of his masterpieces. He set up his camera on the San Francisco's famed Nob Hill, where he had already been commissioned to photograph the mansions, and took a panorama of the city using eight by ten-inch plates. The result was a magnificent view of the city on 11 panels that stretched to seven and a half feet in length. Muybridge published this as "Panorama of San Francisco from California Street Hill."

Early Motion Pictures

Muybridge was not only fascinated by animals in motion, he was intrigued with devising a method of having photographs depict motion. The Masters of Photography website described this as "stop-action series photography."

He had already experimented with various automatic shutters to quickly capture movement when in 1879, he developed what he initially called the zoogyroscope, which later became known as the zoopraxiscope. As defined by the Masters of Photography website, a zoopraxiscope was a "primitive motion-picture machine which recreated movement by displaying individual photographs in rapid succession."

Muybridge used glass disks with sequential photos on each disk of a horse in motion as the "slides" for his projector. This pioneering method predated Thomas Edison's Kinetoscope and even influenced it. Many now believe that Edison's work was a refinement of Muybridge's, albeit a vastly improved refinement.

Muybridge spent much of his later career at the University of Pennsylvania. He took photographs between 1884 and 1887, demonstrating animal and human motion and movement. The result was Animal Locomotion, published in 1887. The Masters of Photography website described it as "the most significant work was the human figure."

The website added that it was "a visual dictionary of human and animal forms in action." The 11-volume series showed male and female models, both nude and clothed, photographed in all kinds of activities - walking, running, playing games, climbing stairs, etc. Muybridge even photographed a girl throwing a bucket of water over another girl, and a mother spanking a child.

By now Muybridge was well known on the lecture circuit, not only in California, but on the East Coast and in Europe. He continued his studies of animal motion, and displayed the zoopraxiscope at the Columbian Exposition of 1893.

In his last years, he returned to Kingston-on-Thames where he died on May 8, 1904. The Washington Post, concluded that Muybridge "showed the world how people and animals actually move and permanently altered our perception of time and space."

Books

Hass, Robert Bartlett, Muybridge: Man in Motion, University of California Press, 1976.

Periodicals

Washington Post, July 5, 1991.

Online

"Eadweard Muybridge," Masters of Photography website,http://www.masters-of-photography.com/M/muybridge/muybridge.html (March 11, 2001).

"Eadweard Muybridge," The Film 100-website,http://www.film100.com/timelinepages/1990pg.shtml (December 11, 2000).

"Eadweard Muybridge - Father of the Motion Picture," Michael Linder website,http://linder.com/muybridge (March 11, 2001).

"Freeze Frame - Eadweard Muybridge's Photography of Motion," Smithsonian Freeze Frame: Virtual National Museum of American History website,http://americanhistory.si.edu/muybridge/index.htm (March 11, 2001).

"UCR/CMP: Eadweard Muybridge," UCR/California Museum of Photography website,http://photo.ucr.edu/photographers/muybridge (March 11, 2001).

Muybridge, Eadweard (1830-1904). Born Edward Muggeridge in Kingston upon Thames, England, Muybridge emigrated to America in 1851, returned after a stagecoach accident, reappeared in San Francisco c.1867, and became an outstanding landscape photographer of the West. Commissioned to photograph the racehorses of ex-governor of California Leland Stanford in 1872, he developed, in 1878, a battery-of-cameras system that produced high-speed sequential photographs showing the horse's brief suspension in the air during phases of its trot and the gallop, a much-debated issue. He sold zoetrope strips from this work, and devised a ‘zoopraxiscope’ to illustrate his lectures on the horse in America and Europe. Muybridge visited Marey in Paris in 1881, then accepted an invitation from the University of Pennsylvania to photograph human and animal movement in 1884. This eleven-volume work, containing 781 plates assembled from 19, 347 single images, was published by subscription in 1887 as Animal Locomotion: one of the most curious challenges to our faith in the camera as the guarantor of the visible. Many plates are assemblages rather than chronological sequences, and although Muybridge's stop-action photography is often claimed to be an antecedent of motion pictures, it is better understood as a treasure trove of figurative, often erotic, imagery. A pronounced eccentric, who was acquitted of the murder of his wife's lover, Muybridge returned to England in 1894, and died digging a replica of the Great Lakes in his back garden.

— Marta Braun

Bibliography

• Mozley, A. V., “‘Introduction’”, in Muybridge's Complete Human and Animal Locomotion (1979).
• Prodger, P., Time Stands Still: Muybridge and the Instantaneous Photography Movement (2003)

Biography

Eadweard Muybridge was not a filmmaker, an actor, or a studio mogul. In fact, the motion picture industry came into being only during the final years of his life, and its impact upon him was in all likelihood negligible. Yet Muybridge deserves consideration among the pioneers of cinema, for his own impact on the fledgling medium was massive: The creator of an automated camera shutter mechanism, his experiments with series photography greatly influenced Thomas Edison and inspired the subsequent introduction of high-speed shutters into movie-making technology.

Born Edward James Muggeridge in Kingston Upon Thames, England, on April 9, 1830, he staked his early reputation on a series of famous 1869 photographs of the Yosemite Valley. His acclaim brought him to the attention of Leland Stanford, a onetime California governor turned horse breeder. Stanford had decided that with enough photographic evidence of his horses, he could improve upon his methods of breeding and training for racing, and he hired Muybridge for the job. Only Muybridge's latest invention made the project possible. In the past, exposures to film were achieved manually, with the photographer removing a lens covering and then quickly replacing it. Muybridge's automated shutter mechanism, however, allowed for a row of a dozen cameras to be triggered by a galloping horse, tripping a wire connected to the shutters and creating a series of photos capturing the different phases of the animal's motion.

With the aid of improvements by Stanford's railway telegraphers, the shutters were redesigned to work more quickly. In 1877, after a series of failed attempts, Muybridge made history when he rigged a Sacramento-area race course and captured a horse named Occidental in full stride. He continued his series photography, eventually taking pictures of hundreds of other creatures in motion (all later published in still form). He also remained dedicated to improving the camera's technological capabilities, further improving shutter speed by devising a system of magnetic releases which created an exposure every 2/1,000 of a second.

Muybridge later adapted his stills to fit the zoetrope, a children's toy (also known as "the wheel of life") which worked upon the principle of the persistence of vision (i.e., the brain's facility to blend images into continuous movement). His work served as the impetus for Edison's subsequent experiments with motion pictures, and his automated shutters were later adopted for use in movie cameras. By 1892, just five years after the publication of an 11-volume set of Muybridge's still photos, Edison and WK Laurie Dickson debuted their Kinetoscope, allowing the public their first glimpse at a moving cinematic image. Muybridge, meanwhile, continued to travel the global lecture circuit until his death on May 8, 1904. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Movie Guide

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