Eadweard Maybridge

Eadweard Maybridge

When someone can do something that changes the face of their subject matter, they are destined for fame. As said in a work edited by Nancy Brooks of the National Museum of American History, “Expatriate Englishman Eadweard Muybridge, a brilliant and eccentric photographer, gained worldwide fame photographing animal and human movement imperceptible to the human eye” (1). His emphasis was on the “persistence of vision.” This point of emphasis would change the face of photography and movement in movies. An example of this persistence of vision would be seeing the circle made by a twirling sparkler.
According to Robert Leggat in a website about the history of photography, “Edward James Muggeridge was born in Kingston on Thames, and it is said that because this area is associated with the coronation of Saxon kings, he took on a name closely resembling (as he saw it) the Anglo Saxon equivalent” (1). Muybridge’s studies have earned him a nickname but it wasn’t known that he didn’t make movies as they are made today. As said in a published work on About.com by experienced writer of inventors Mary Bellis, “Muybridge conducted motion-sequence still photographic experiments and is often called the ‘Father of the motion picture’ even though he did not make films in the manner we know them as today” (1). Muybridge was a very important proponent in the studying of movement. As written by Leggat, “Muybridge's main claim to fame (apart from being tried and acquitted for the murder of his wife's secret lover) was his thorough study of movement” (1).
While Muybridge was an important name in the studying of movement, he wasn’t the only one. As stated by Leggat, “Just about this same time the French physiologist Etienne Marey was studying animal movement, and his studies began to suggest that a horse's movements were very different from what one had imagined” (1). When horses gallop, there is a time where all four hooves are off the ground at once, but it had yet to...