Animal Locomotion. Plate 163, 1887

Eadweard Muybridge was a British photographer known for his groundbreaking work in the field of motion-picture projection. Using multiple cameras, Muybridge famously captured the gait of a trotting horse, then with a device of his own invention, the zoopraxiscope, projected a moving image. Born in UK, he emigrated to the United States at the age of 20. Having been in America for a decade, it was on his way to New York to sail back to England, that he suffered a serious head injury in a stagecoach accident. From 1862 and 1866, while recuperating in England, Muybridge taught himself several photography techniques. Set on making a living through photography, he returned to San Francisco in 1867. Here he successfully marketed large-scale photos of the Yosemite Valley, which gained him national attention. Through the 1870s and 1880s, while being tried for the murder of his wife’s lover, Muybridge perfected his photographic studies of animal locomotion. He was later acquitted of murder.