Eadweard Muybridge – pioneer of motion photography
On the way to the Richmond Park from KRC, there is a blue plaque on the wall of no. 2 Liverpool Rd indicating that Eadweard Muybridge, photographer, lived there.
Eadweard Muybridge was born in 1830 at 30 High Street, Kingston, but did most of his pioneering photographic work in the USA.
One of the things he did which is of special interest to riders was to provide the first accurate information about the gaits of the horse. This work came about because in 1872 Leland Stanford,a former governor of California and a racehorse owner, hired him to help settle the question of whether all four of a horse’s hooves left the ground at the same time when it was in gallop.
To do this Muybridge developed a system to photograph different stages in the horse’s movement. This involved setting up a row of cameras 21 inches apart alongside a track, with very thin trip wires. These were broken by the horse as it passed through them, which activated the cameras’ shutters. Put together the photographs looked like a motion picture. The photographs showed that in fact all four hooves actually do leave the ground when they are tucked under the horse. Previously people had apparently believed that they left the ground when the legs were extended. That must be one of the reasons that old pictures of galloping horses like the ones in KRC bar look so odd.
Eadweard Muybridge went on to achieve worldwide fame by photographing many sorts of animals, and also humans, in movement. He became known as the father of motion pictures.
He died in 1904 while he was living at the house of his cousin, the one with the blue plaque.
You can find out more about his eventful life in Wikipedia.
He bequeathed his equipment and prints to Kingston Museum.
Yvonne Trimmer
Muybridge’s horse in motion
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