Animal Locomotion

Animal Locomotion is Eadweard Muybridge’s multi-volume 1887 publication of sequential photographs showing people and animals in motion. It made movement analyzable as a series of still images.

Eadweard Muybridge: Eadweard Muybridge was a photographer known for pioneering sequential photographs of people and animals in motion. Muybridge conceived and directed the photographic project behind the publication.
Sequential photography: Sequential photography records successive images of a subject at different moments. The publication organizes motion through this basic photographic method.
Human locomotion: Human locomotion is the movement of the human body from place to place or through a sequence of bodily actions. The volumes include studies of people walking, running, and performing everyday actions.
History of animation: The history of animation traces techniques and works that create the appearance of moving images. Muybridge’s sequential images helped establish the visual analysis that later animation could draw upon.
The Horse in Motion: The Horse in Motion is Muybridge’s 1878 photographic sequence showing a galloping horse in successive positions. This earlier sequence demonstrated the method later expanded in Animal Locomotion.
Camera shutter: A camera shutter controls how long light reaches the photographic medium. Rapid shutter exposures helped freeze the brief phases of movement shown in the plates.
Horse gait: Horse gait is a characteristic pattern of footfalls and body movement used by a horse. The plates document distinct phases of horse movement beyond the famous gallop.
Cinema: Cinema is the art and technology of recording and presenting moving images. The publication belongs to the photographic prehistory of moving-image media.
Leland Stanford: Leland Stanford was a California governor and railroad magnate who funded Muybridge’s early motion-photography experiments. Stanford’s support helped establish the photographic approach that led to the volumes.
Gelatin dry plate: A gelatin dry plate is a glass photographic plate coated with light-sensitive silver salts in gelatin. This photographic medium enabled the exposures used to create the sequences.

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History of film technologyBroader topic: Its sequential photographs showed how cameras could dissect movement frame by frame.