The task

You’ve just acquired a time machine! To which era of motion history would you travel to get involved in? Write a 250-word document outlining your favourite era and include the following:

• What year would you go back to?
• Who would you be an understudy to?
• Why is this part of motion history your favourite?
• How do you think this part of history has influenced the modern day world?

Include pictures, videos and any other media to help motivate your answers.

I would go back to the 1870s and be an understudy to Eadweard Muybridge, one of the pioneers in photographic study of motion and early work in motion-picture projection.

The reason I would go back and be an understudy to Eadweard Muybridge is because of the way he combined photography and motion graphic. I love photographing, so reading and learning more about the history is really fascinating.

His most notable contribution to the world of photography came through his innovative work in capturing motion. In the 1870s, he embarked on a series of experiments commissioned by Leland Stanford, a railroad tycoon and racehorse owner, to settle a debate about whether all four hooves of a horse leave the ground simultaneously during a gallop.

He devised a groundbreaking technique using multiple cameras trigged by tripwires, capturing successive image of a horse in motion. This technique, known as “motion photography” or “chrono photography,” allowed him to freeze moments of movements, revealing details imperceptible to the human eye.

In 1878, Muybridge successfully demonstrated through his photographic sequence, “Sallie Gardner at the Gallop.” that horses do indeed lift all four hooves of the ground during a gallop. This achievements not only settled the debate but also marked a significant milestone in the history of photography and the study of motion.

In 1879 he invented the Zoopraxiscope, and was built for him by January 1880 to project his famous chronophotographic pictures in motion. This device was essentially an early form of a motion picture projector. It utilized a series of glass discs, each containing sequential images from Muybridge’s motion study, he had an unidentified artist that painted each sequence onto each plate. When rotated at high speeds and projected onto a screen, these images created an illusion of continuous motion, captivating audiences with moving pictures long before the advent of modern cinema.

I think this part of history has influenced the modern day world by giving the photography world a solid fundament. How the cameras is changing every year to get better and have even more insane technology. It’s fascinating to learn how they took images like this before, now we can either film a movie in slow motion to see frame by frame or take a timelapse to see how things are moving or growing. We can just put our camera up and press a button and the camera will do “everything” for us.