Eadweard Muybridge (1879)

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Eadweard Muybridge was an English photographer that was famous for his pioneering work in photographic studies of motion and in motion-picture projection. In 1879, he invented the zoopraxiscope, witch was a device for displaying motion pictures.

 

In the late 1800s Muybridge's former California Governor Leland Stanford contacted him to help settle a bet. Speculation raged for years over whether all four hooves of a running horse left the ground. Stanford believed they did, but the motion was too fast for human eyes to detect. In 1872, Muybridge began experimenting with an array of 12 cameras photographing a galloping horse in a sequence of shots. His initial efforts seemed to prove that Stanford was right, but he didn’t have the process perfected.

Between 1878 and 1884, Muybridge perfected his method of horses in motion, proving that they do have all four hooves off the ground during their running stride.

 

       The Zoopraxiscope was a projecting version of the old Phenakisticsope. The device projected sequences of images from glass discs and was devised in order to prove the authenticity of Muybridge's galloping horse pictures. The earlier Zoogyroscope took the 16 inch discs while the latter Zoopraxiscope took the 12 inch discs.