Muybridge, Eadweard

(born April 9, 1830, Kingston upon Thames, Surrey, Eng.—died May 8, 1904, Kingston upon Thames) English photographer. He immigrated to the U.S. from England as a young man, and in 1868 his photos of Yosemite Valley made him famous. Hired by Leland Stanford to photograph a trotting horse in motion, to test Stanford's contention that it lifted all four legs simultaneously, he developed a special fast shutter for his battery of 12 to 24 cameras, and in 1877 he proved Stanford right. He lectured widely on animal locomotion, illustrating his lectures with his zoopraxiscope, a predecessor of the movie projector. His extensive photographic studies of human movement (1884–87) have been useful to artists and scientists.

Source: Encyclopedia Britannica