Eadweard Muybridge (1830–1904) was born in Kingston upon Thames, Surrey, England. He took up photography after an injury, and went on to produce over 100,000 images. Though he was famous at the time for landscapes and other conventional glass-plate photography, he is most known today for his pioneering work in motion studies and projection. This was key to the early development of both motion pictures and animation.
In 1872 race-horse owner Leland Stanford hired Muybridge to settle a bet, which had been debated for centuries. Are all four hooves of a horse off the ground at the same time? Artists had established a convention of painted horses at a trot with one foot always on the ground, but at a gallop with all feet raised.
After a dozen years of development, Muybridge created a multi-camera system that could create a sequence of stills. This proved that a horse does indeed have all four hooves off the ground at one stage in the gallop. However, this occurs when the legs are pulled closest together, not when extended, as was commonly believed. The original study was entitled "Sallie Gardner at a Gallop".
