ARTISTS

This important English photographer pioneered work in photographic studies of motion and in motion-picture projection. He emigrated to the United States as a young man but remained obscure until 1868, when his large photographs of Yosemite Valley, California, made him world famous. Muybridge's experiments in photographing motion began in 1872, when Leland Stanford hired him to prove that during a particular moment in a trotting horse's gait all four legs are off the ground simultaneously. His first efforts were unsuccessful because his camera lacked a fast shutter. The project was then interrupted while Muybridge was being tried for the murder of his wife's lover. Although he was acquitted, he found it expedient to travel for a number of years in Mexico and Central America, making publicity photographs for the Union Pacific Railroad, a company owned by Stanford.