Muybridge's motion studies
The simple question that led to a revolutionary discovery
Alex Q. Arbuckle
1878-1887
In 1872, California governor and businessman Leland Stanford hired landscape photographer Eadweard Muybridge to settle a popular question: When a horse gallops, is there a point where all of its hooves are off the ground at the same time?Muybridge began experimenting with ways to capture motion too fast for the human eye to discern, but the project was put on hold when Muybridge shot and killed his wife’s lover and was put on trial for murder. The jury acquitted him on the grounds of justifiable homicide, and he decided to cool his heels in Central America for nine months. Upon returning to the United States, Muybridge resumed his work settling the horse question. After much tinkering and perfecting his methods, he invited a skeptical press to watch as he photographed one of Stanford’s horses. As "Sallie Gardner" galloped down a sunlit track against a white background, she tripped the shutters of a row of 24 cameras spaced 27 inches apart, capturing her gait in sequence.The resulting images proved the hypothesis of “unsupported transit” — there is indeed a moment when all four hooves are off the ground.
The implications of this discovery and Muybridge’s methods were far-reaching. Many painters had previously depicted galloping horses flying through the air with their legs fully outstretched; but the photos proved that the moment of unsupported transit happens when the legs are curled under the horse. It was immediately evident that this technique would also be useful for the physiological study of locomotion. Muybridge spent the rest of his career refining his methods and photographing the locomotion of a wide range of animals, as well as people performing a variety of actions and movements. His work was widely used for reference by scientists and artists, and was a precursor to the invention of motion pictures.
