ElRo Resources's List: Ettenheim: Eadweard Muybridge

• an ongoing collaboration between Kingston University and Kingston Museum in the United Kingdom, aims to provide a definitive research resource surrounding the work of 19th Century photographer Eadweard Muybridge. Here you can find an introduction to Muybridge’s works in historical and social context; and information on the international collections that house them.

• Hired by railroad   baron Leland Stanford in 1872, Muybridge used photography to prove that   there was a moment in a horse’s gallop when all four hooves were   off the ground at once. He spent much of his later career at the University   of Pennsylvania, producing thousands of images that capture progressive   movements within fractions of a second.

• Up until this time, most paintings of horses at full gallop showed the front legs extended forward and the hind legs extended to the rear. Stanford sided with this assertion, called "unsupported transit", and took it upon himself to prove it scientifically. Stanford sought out Muybridge and hired him to settle the question.
• In later studies Muybridge used a series of large cameras that used glass plates placed in a line, each one being triggered by a thread as the horse passed. Later a clockwork device was used. The images were copied in the form of silhouettes onto a disc and viewed in a machine called a Zoopraxiscope

  Zoopraxiscope

  The zoopraxiscope is an early device for displaying motion pictures. Created by photographic pioneer Eadweard Muybridge in 1879, it may be considered the first movie projector. The zoopraxiscope projected images from rotating glass disks in rapid succession to give the impression of motion. The...

  
  . This in fact became an intermediate stage towards motion pictures or cinematography.
  
• In 1877, Muybridge settled Stanford's question with a single photographic negative showing Stanford's Standardbred trotting horse Occident airborne at the trot
• n 1874, still living in the San Francisco Bay Area, Muybridge discovered that his wife had a lover, a Major Harry Larkyns. On 17 October, he sought out Larkyns and said, "Good evening, Major, my name is Muybridge and here's the answer to the letter you sent my wife"; he then killed the Major with a gunshot
• Muybridge was put on trial for murder. One aspect of his defense was a plea of insanity due to a head injury that Muybridge had sustained following his stagecoach accident. Friends testified that the accident dramatically changed Muybridge's personality from genial and pleasant to unstable and erratic. The jury dismissed the insanity plea, but he was acquitted for "justifiable homicide

  Justifiable homicide

  The United States' concept of justifiable homicide in criminal law stands on the dividing line between an excuse, justification and an exculpation. It is different from other forms of homicide in that due to certain circumstances the homicide is justified as preventing greater harm to innocents...

  
  ". The episode interrupted his horse photography experiment, but not his relationship with Stanford, who paid for his criminal defense
• After the acquittal, Muybridge left the United States for a time to take photographs in Central America, returning in 1877. He had his son, Florado Helios Muybridge (nicknamed "Floddie" by friends), put in an orphanage. Muybridge believed Larkyns to be his son's true father, although as an adult, the son bore a remarkable resemblance to Muybridge. As an adult, Floddie worked as a ranch hand and gardener.

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