Eadward Muybridge

Eadward Muybridge was a British photographer who is well know for his pioneering work on animal locomotion which used multiple cameras to capture motion in stop-action photographs, and his zoopraxiscope, a device for projecting motion pictures that pre-dated the flexible perforated film strip used in cinematography. Eadweard developed a fast camera shutter and used other state of the art techniques of his day to make the first photographs that show sequences of movement. In 1879 the Zoopraxiscope was developed, which projected a series of images in successive phases of movement obtained through the use of multiple cameras. Eadweard Muybridge's most famous motion studies, a row of cameras snapped a dozen or more photographs of a passing horse; the public was astonished to see proof that a trotting horse can simultaneously have all four hooves off the ground. For this experiment Muybridge devised a fast camera shutter and used a new, more sensitive photographic process, both of which dramatically reduced exposure time and produced crisp images of moving objects.