1. Depicting Time With
Photography
“Photography takes an instant out of
time, altering life by holding it still.”
- Dorothea Lange

2. Pioneers of Capturing Motion
Eadweard Muybridge Harold Edgerton
April 9, 1830 – May 8, 1904 April 6, 1903 – January 4, 1990

3. Eadweard
Muybridge
experimented with
photography and
time, producing
famous studies of
human and animal
motion.
His work
conclusively
proved that when
horses gallop, all
Early experiments with
four hooves leave
the ground. photography, time, and motion

4. How did he do it?
Originally, Muybrid
ge lined up a series
of cameras next to
each other. As the
horse galloped
past, it would
trigger strings
stretched across the
track and connected
to each individual
camera.
Early experiments with
photography, time, and motion

6. Eventually he perfected
this process and created
a camera with multiple
lenses and plates. He
would use several of
these cameras, all
controlled by a single
mechanism.
Early experiments with
photography, time, and motion

7. Muybridge then
invented a machine,
the Zoopraxiscope,
that allowed him to
play his images in
succession in a
rudimentary form of
animation.
The Zoopraxiscope

8. The images were
painted on glass
disks, which were
then spun and
projected.
This early work in
photography and the
capturing of motion
led to other forms of
rudimentary
animation.
The Zoopraxiscope

9. John Barnes Linnett
patented a new form of
moving pictures in
1868, which consisted
of a series of drawings
in a book that appeared
to move when the
pages were quickly
flipped.
He called his invention
the Kineograph, more
commonly known as
flip books.
These inventions all led Flip Books
to the development of
motion pictures.

10. Harold Edgerton wanted
to push Muybridge’s
work to a new
level, trying to capture
motion at an even faster
rate.
Many of Harold
Edgerton's photographs
show a split second not
viewable by the naked
eye.
Capturing What the Eye Cannot See

12. Photography has the
capability of capturing
a small fraction of
time, but it also has the
ability to show the
passage of time in one
photograph. Take a
look at Edgerton’s
photograph of the
golfer in motion.
Unlike Muybridge's
work, this photograph
shows motion in one
frame, rather than
through a series of Edgerton and Strobe Photography
photographs.

14. Muybridge and Edgerton
are still influencing
photography today!
Much like Muybridge’s
original setup using
multiple cameras, the
maker’s of The Matrix
set up hundreds of still
cameras around the
actors and pieced them
together to make a
moving image. However,
unlike Muybridge’s
cameras, these cameras
were activated
electronically by “Bullet Time”
computer, rather than by Photography and Motion Pictures
a series of strings.