Eadweard Muybridge, pronounced Edward Moy-bridge, was an English photographer in the late 19th century. Apart from changing his name an absurd number of times, and killing a man, Muybridge was busy clearing the way for one of the most influential new-found art forms of the modern world. In 1872, the question was asked if during a gallop, all four of a horse's legs were off the ground at the same time. In order to settle this, Muybridge placed multiple cameras around a race track at even intervals, each connected to a tripwire. As the horse ran by, the cameras were triggered and the position of the hooves were recorded. His horse studies are seen here.
In looping sequence, the photos look like this.
When a horse runs, there is no point in time where all four hooves are off the ground. Sounds pretty trivial and mostly unrelated to where stop motion pictures are at this very moment. However, Muybridge and his horse studies planted the concept of "frames per second" in both stop action photography and moving pictures. He was able to capture sequential movements. The epitome of stop motion. And very much the epitome of cutting edge.
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