Eadweard Muybridge

Eadweard Muybridge was a 19th century British photographer who pioneered the use of sequential photography to capture animal and human movement. His innovative photographic techniques and work had a major influence on the invention of film and pushed the boundaries of science and art.

Eadweard Muybridge Biography

• Born April 9, 1830 in Kingston upon Thames, England
• In 1850, he emigrated to America, where he managed a bookstore before becoming a photographer.
• In 1872, he attempted to take a series of photographs to settle a debate about whether there was a moment when all of a horse's legs were off the ground while it was running.
• In 1878, he succeeded in taking continuous photographs of horses using multiple cameras, becoming the forerunner of "moving photography."
• In the 1880s, he took continuous photographs of various movements of animals and humans, and published "Locomotion of Animals."
• Died May 8, 1904, Kingston upon Thames, England (aged 74)

Representative works

• The Horse in Motion (1878)
• Animal Locomotion (1887)

Muybridge's style and achievements

Muybridge's works capture the movements of animals and humans in a series of photographs, recording each moment from a scientific point of view. His works are not just documentary photographs, but also works of art that visually express the beauty and complexity of movement.

Muybridge's innovative photography techniques and works had a major influence on the invention of film. His sequential photographs anticipated the basic principle of film - the decomposition and reconstruction of motion - and are said to have influenced the Lumière brothers, known as the fathers of cinema.

Muybridge is a photographer who pushed the boundaries of science and art by using photography to record moments that the human eye could not capture, and his work offers us, today, new perspectives on concepts of movement and time.