Eardweard Muybridge

Eadweard Muybridge is what people would call an artist. He was around when photography first became a big thing. In 1855, Eadweard Muybridge left his hometown to San Francisco under the name of E.J. MuyGridge. After he travelled to San Francisco, the carriage he travelled in crashed causing a serious head injury to Muybridge. This caused him to see things differently. He spent six years in England as MuyGridge the bookseller but then decided to become Muybridge the photographer. He even started calling himself Helios the Sun.

To be a photographer at this time, they needed to be a chemist as well. The ‘Camera’ was just a piece of glass and some chemicals. The preparation for each photograph was tedious and careful. The inspiration for Muybridge was a landscape painter William Keith. Muybridge made photographs of landscape that look similar to a landscape painting.

He was asked to come to a racecourse in Sacramento to prove that the horses do lift all four feet of the ground. However, when he took the picture it was a good picture but he later admitted that it was shadowy and indistinct and he realised the shutter didn’t open and close properly.

Muybridge’s wife was a very flirtatious woman. However, Muybridge still wanted to marry her so he paid for her divorce to her ex-husband then married her himself. They then had a son called Florado. Not long after they had their son, Muybridge found out that his wife has had an affair. This made him wonder if the child was even his. Muybridge was so full of rage that when he found out whom the affair was with, he caught a two-hour boat ride then the train. All the while firing his pistol whenever he could as if he was practicing. He then walked a very long journey to Yellow Jacker Ranch. When he reached his destination, he knocked on the door. When the man he was looking for answered, he said ‘A message from my wife’ then shot him an inch below the left nipple.

Muybridge was then arrested and taken to court. He said he felt justified and that it was in his rights as a husband to do what he did. The trial was a great media circus. If Muybridge were found guilty he would be hung, if found not guilty he would be incarcerated. He was found not guilty but was released instead. The crowds all applauded. However even to this day, we do not know if Florado was Muybridge’s son or not.

Muybridge then caught a boat to Central America under the name Eduardo Santiago Muybridge. The murder did affect his photography as darker themes were hidden in his photographs. His behaviour changed as well. He started wearing a slanted hat, smoking cigars and wouldn’t look people in the eye.

After all that, he was invited back to that racecourse to try again. He made it his obsession. He knew that in order to assess motion he needed a sequence of images. He put twenty-four electronic shutter cameras in a row that went off as the horse passed them. The pictures were successful. But some people thought they were ridiculous and didn’t believe him. Thus Muybridge used stop motion.