Animals in Motion – Eadweard Muybridge

This book is a documentary book rather than a contextual book. I shows the research he photographer did during his study.

The front cover of the book is eye catching due to the contrasting colours as well as the large text. The book starts with a section about Eadweard Muybridge and his work. I then goes into a preface where it describes how the idea for the book came about, the build up to the shoot, the preparation and the shoot itself.

Throughout the book there are sections of text that describe what is going on in the photographs. It describes the struggles of getting the set of images due to the use of animals. The book has a red hard front and back with a plastic cover over it. The front cover has a large image collage filling the bottom half with a centre meter teal boarder. The top half has a red background, a large white title. It then has a small paragraph where it states some of the animals that were photographed as well as that the book contains over four thousand individual photographs that make up the collages. The pages within the book have a plastic and smooth feel unlike regular paper. It smells of ink as would be common in a printing factory.

The book is heavy to hold. The image on the front has different coloured tints however the images inside are all in black and white due the the images being taken before colour photography was invented.

Each image in the book takes up a full double page spread with a few centimetre white boarder around the edge where the name of the photographs are sometimes show and occasionally a small paragraph talking about that specific set of images. In this photobook the images are not singular images as seen in most other books. Each page has a compilation of images all of the same subjects. Due to the use of up to fifteen cameras many images were taken of the same motion in a small space of time with only a small amount of movement between each one. The grid style of images perfectly shows what the photographer was trying to. The different stages of body position during an animals movement.

There is no information after the final image of the book. There are four blank white pages.