Eadweard Muybridge Biography

Eadweard Muybridge was an English-American photographer and technical pioneer. He is known for his impressive studies of motion through photographs and discoveries in the field of motion picture. He was born as Edward James Muggeridge, but later changed his name to Eadweard Muybridge. He also called himself Eduardo Santiago Muybridge while he was living in Guatemala. He often signed his photographs under the pseudonym "Helios," meaning the sun god. In his 20s, he moved from England to the United States and started working as a bookseller there. While recovering from a life-altering accident, he gained an interest in photography and in no time, he became widely famous for as a landscape photographer. His collection of the Yosemite Valley is one of his prominent works. He was also an inventor who had two patents under his name. He discovered new methods to capture animal locomotion using multiple cameras. He invented a device called the 'zoopraxiscope,' which was an important invention in the field of motion picture and cinematography. He captured over 100,000 images of animals and humans in motion while he was doing research at the University of Pennsylvania. He is also considered to be the first cinematographer and scientific photographer. His works have inspired and influenced visual artists all over the world and changed the course of scientific and industrial photography. The imagery of Animal Locomotion had a deep impact on famous artists, including Ansel Adams, Francis Bacon, Cy Twombly, Marcel Duchamp, and Jasper Johns.