Eadweard Muybridge, originally Edward James Muggeridge, adopted his new name believign it to be the original Anglo-Saxon form of his name. He was born 9 April, 1830 and died 8 May, 1904. He was an English photographer, who was considered important for his pioneering work in photogrpahic studies of motion and in motion-picture projection. He immigrated to the United States at the age of 20. He remained undiscovered until 1868, when his large photogrpahs of Yosemite Valley, California, made him world famous.

Muybridge’s reputation as a photographer grew in the late 1800s, this led to the former California Governor Leland Stanford to contact him to help settle a bet. Speculation had continued for years over whether all four hooves of a running horse left the ground at the same time. Stanford believed they did, but the motuon was too quick for the naked eye to detect. In 1872, Muybridge began photogrpahing a galloping horse in a sequence of shots. His intial findings appeared to indicate that Stanford was right, but due to imperfection in Muybridge’s methods, it could not be confirmed with certainty. With the further funding he received from Stanford, Muybridge eventually created a more complex method of photographing horse in motion and by 1879, he had proven that they do at times have all four hooved off the ground during their running stride.

Muybridge was invited to continue his research at the University of Pennsylvania in 1993. For the following few years he produced thousands of photogrpahs of humans and animals in motion. He presented his photogrpahic methods using a projection device he had devloped called the Zoopraxiscope.