The modified zoetrope allowed him to share the movement studies with his audiences. By placing a light at the position of the rotating slit, Muybridge created one of the first motion picture projectors. The images were made on glass instead of paper. The novelty and popularity helped propel Muybridge to a career of traveling to lecture on the technique. The multi-picture image appeared animated. When the rotating drum is viewed through the slit, the images blend together creating the “persistence of vision” effect movies use today. It has an opening on top with a slit for viewing the images inside. A zeotrope is a device that is basically a handheld, rotating drum. Readers were asked to cut out the strips and fashion them into a zeotrope. In October 1878 the horse photos were reproduced as drawings in an issue of Scientific American. The breakthrough sparked many opportunities for Muybridge. Looking through the slit of the spinning drum causes the scene inside to be in motion. This breakthrough information encouraged Leland Stanford to commission Muybridge to repeat the study with other animals. The images clearly showed the suspension occurs when all four legs are tucked up under the horse’s abdomen. The sequence of photographs proved that was not how a horse runs. People expected the images to confirm the form of children’s hobby horse toys one where the horse’s legs are outstretched both in the front and back at the same time. It looked far different than what anyone expected. Muybridge did indeed prove that when a horse gallops, all four legs are off the ground. When the horse ran past, it would break through the wires which would trigger the shutters in sequence. He strung 24 individual wires, each connected to the shutter switch of a different camera mounted across the track. Then, he put 24 individual cameras along the outer rail of the racetrack. He put a white background up against the inner rail of a horse racetrack. Muybridge continued to modify his technique and eventually figured out a strategy. Even at the start of photography, people were quick to judge an altered image as “fake” or “untrue” no matter how slight the retouching. They did not see the underlying work as legitimate. He ended up retouching the underexposed images to bring out more details. Unfortunately, the results were still underexposed. He succeeded in freezing the motion better. This increased the effective ISO and so decreased the exposure time. Eventually, he found a way to “ripen” the emulsion by storing it for multiple days at high temperatures. Initial use of a wet plate was too slow for to get a sharp image with the horse running at such a fast speed. Muybridge was commissioned by the builder of the Central Pacific Railroad, Leland Stanford, to provide proof that when a horse galloped, there is a point at which it has all four feet off the ground. Eadweard Muybridge: The horse in Motion The Running Horse However, they both had different approaches and motives. Between the 1850’s and 1880’s two men, Eadweard Muybridge and Etienne-Jules Marey both were using photography to further the study of locomotion (or movement) of humans and animals.
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