Muybridge is renowned for his ground-breaking work in animal locomotion, proving a horse does in fact fly when galloping. He was one of the first photographers to use multiple cameras to capture motion, then projecting the findings with his creation of the zoopraxiscope – a device for projecting motion pictures that pre-dated the flexible perforated film strip.

Sallie Gardneer at a Gallop is Muybridge’s most famous production experiment, which took place on June 19th, 1878. It was this experiment that laid the foundations for the future development of motion pictures, consisting of 24 photographs in a fast-motion series.

Between 1883 and 1886 Muybridge took over 100,000 images at the Unversity of Pennsylvania, resulting in over 700 sequences, studying the movement of humans and animals. Many of these works are featuring models either entirely nude or with very little clothing, photographed in a variety of undertakings, ranging from boxing, to walking down stairs, to throwing water over one another and carrying buckets of water.

Today his findings and fundamentals are still used, with similar setups of carefully timed multiple cameras are used in modern special effects photography with the opposite goal: capturing changing camera angles with little or no movement of the subject. Muybridges’s work is also a major reference for technical artists and figurative drawing.

   Leland Stanford commission Muybridge to take pictures of his racehorse in 1872.

B. What did Stanford want to find out from these photographs?

    Stanford wanted to know whether a galloping horses four hooves ever left the ground at the same time.

C. What was the set up Muybridge used to take the photographs?

   Muybridge used 12 cameras that were activated by strings as horse galloped through. 

D. What did the photographs prove?

    Muybridge prove that all four hooves of the horse did in fact leave the ground at the same time.

E. What became possible because of Muybridge’s work?

    Because of his work motion pictures were possible.