Eadweard Muybridge

Eadweard Muybridge was a photographer born in 1830 in Kingston, England but also died in 1904 in Kingston, England. The local museum in Kingston sets up its own exhibition for Eadweard Muybridge’s work, including original scrapbooks and the original Zoopraxiscope moving image projector.

His name originally was “Edward James Muggeridge” however changed it to “Eadweard Muybridge” after being inspired by the correlation stone in Kingston was re-erected in 1850.

His family had a grain and coal merchant business, originally owned by Eadweard’s father but given to his mother after his father’s passing. At 20 years old, he emigrated to the US for his career, where he lived in New York. The US was still in development at this time and was referred to as the Wild West. Five years after moved to San Francisco in 1855 to begin his career as a publisher’s agent for the London Printing and Publishing Company, and as a bookseller. He wrote about his time spent in New Orleans as well.

In 1860, he was a successful bookseller and was preparing to go back to England to sell his books. However, he missed the boat and instead went by stagecoach over the southern route to St. Louis, by rail to New York City, then by ship to England. But unfortunately suffered a serious head injury in a carriage crash, then recover from symptoms of double vision, confused thinking, impaired sense of taste and smell, and other problems.

Muybridge returns to England for 6 years where he studied photography using early image manipulation before heading back to the US. He may have been influenced by some of the great English photographers of those years. Once back in the US, Muybridge signed and published his work under the fictitious name “Helios”.

In 1872, Leland Stanford, a businessman and race-horse owner, hired Muybridge for some photographic studies. They debated whether all four feet of a horse were off the ground at the same time while trotting and so Muybridge decided to help answer the question with 12 cameras. At first, it was heavily suggested in the photos that the horse’s feet would all come of the ground but Muybridge wanted to fully prove it was possible. This study later created the zoopraxiscope, a device consisting of a disk with a series of images that would create the illusion of movement when the disk was spun.

Once back in the US Changed his name to Helios then married 21-year-old Flora Shallcross Stone. During this time Muybridge discovered that  Harry Larkyns might have fathered Flora’s son, Florado; in other words, Leland Stanford Wife was committing adultery. Muybridge murdered Harry Larkyns by shooting him and was arrested that same night.

He was held in a cell for 4 months and during his trial, he pleaded insanity due to the severe head injury mentioned earlier. He was found not guilty and was a free man. Flora Shallcross Stone filed for divorce but failed and remained married the Muybridge. Muybridge left the United States on a 9-month photography trip to Central America. Returning to work for Stanford in 1877.

Muybridge continued studies on movement with humans and other animals which his studies helped artists, animators, and students of animal and human movement.  He successfully photographed a horse running at full speed, Time-sliced photography. Eventually, retiring from his work and later dying due to prostate cancer.