Eadweard Muybridge
Edward James Muggeridge had
many different names for himself, however many were very opinionated of him as
a person and of his work. Growing up Edward was known for inventing a new trick
or toy, he had said do a relative that he was going to make something of
himself and that if he didn't he would never be seen again. He was a man of
many jobs, he like to think a himself as a scientist, an artist, a pioneer and
he was adamant to be in the lime light; he made his way to America.
After five years of being
in America it was 1855 when his name was first recognized as a bookseller and
went by the surname "Muggridge". He soon realized that it wasn't what
he wanted to do with his life, so of course he announced to the public that he
was in fact leaving the US. On his journey to leave America his stagecoach
had crashed leaving Edward suffering with a head injury causing him to see
double vision. He had said that his whole life had flashed before his eyes and
that he had experienced a kind of spiritual sign so he went back to England in
1861. Six years later after learning the wet collodion process creating many
pieces of photographs one of which was of a light house with he had models pose
in very precise places in the image the sky showed up white and so the clouds
were taken separately later then to be added to the finished piece.
In 1867 Edward had
changed his name to Helious and He became a chemist alongside being a
photographer he learnt from other famous artists such as William Keith's
landscape paintings. He boasted about his work to the press calling the
photographs the most exquisite views ever created, people descibed him as more
of a salesman than an inventor or a scientist. Edward liked the instability,
darkness, and loneliness of his photos and new exactly what would and wouldn’t
sell. In the marketing industry the wilderness was the fashion of that
particular time and that is what Edward sold along with some others, which
inspired people to travel to America. Edward started using stereoscopic images
(two images side by side) of America's railway as well as buildings which were
getting taller and the images sold all over the world. He captured image of
himself under a giant tree which was different to the images he had done in the
past in this particular image he looks very uncomfortable, serious and some
what lonely.
Later on he met his wife
Flora Shallcross Stone who was still married to a previous partner but
Muybridge paid for her to get a divorce and soon after married her. Eadward
went away to work as he was approached by a client who had asked if its was
possible to photograph a horse with all 4 legs in the air which Muybridge
thought was very unlikely until he created a type of stop motion a shutter
which would open and close, although the experiment didn't entirely work he
still had captured proof that the horses 4 legs were in fact off the ground and
he was still in headlines which caused some reporters to question his discovery
and began mocking him but it didn't stop Eadweard.
Flora fell pregnant and
soon after gave birth to a boy who was named Florado Muybridge, his wife had an
affair and so He took the new railway up to Napa Valley journeyed up to
Yellow Jacket ranch and shot Flora's lover (Harry Larkyn).
After the shooting Muybridge
had changed completely and begun to perfect the photograph of the horse with
all 4 feet off the air. He took a different approach by creating a mechanism
that took several pictures of the horse. This was called stop motion it
improved his discovery. Leland Stanford who was working with Eadweard at the
time took full credibility for his work, which inspired Muybridge to create
more similar images of different animals then people in the nude. As time went
by more artists and filmmakers were inspired by Muybridge’s stop motion theory
and began using it in films.
