Eadweard Muybridge’s contribution to the understanding of time and movement?

Eadweard Muybridge’s contribution came from when he was commissioned by Central Pacific Railroad, Leland Stanford, to provide proof that when a horse galloped, there would be a point where all four legs of the horse would be off the ground.

The task was very difficult. He used wet plate but, that was too slow for it to get a sharp image while the horse was galloping at such high speed. He then found a way to “ripen” the emulsion. He achieved this by storing the emulsion for many days and keeping it on a high temperature. This method had increased the effective ISO and thus decreased the exposure time. He was successful in capturing a better image, however the images were still underexposed so, he had to retouch the images to bring out more detail but, this fell on the flipside and the public didn’t believe him. Public or other photographs didn’t see underlaying as a legitimate work and would think that the photograph was a fake or not real.

Eadweard Muybridge kept on making changes to his technique and finally he figured out a strategy. What he did was to put a white background in the inner rail of the race course track. After, he puts up 24 cameras that are attached to 24 individual wires and each of the wires are connected to the shutter switch. It was a simple idea, when the horse ran around the race course, the action would break pull/ break the wired which would trigger the shutter in order to take an image. This technique of his worked and Muybridge proved that when a horse galloped, all four legs are of the ground. This method of taking picture encouraged Leland Stanford to commission Muybridge to repeat the study with other animals.