Eadweard Muybridge

Eadweard Muybridge (1830-1904), born in England but active as a photographer in the United States for most of his adventurous life, was a key figure in photographic history. On giant glass plates he captured the natural splendor o Yosemite and photographed panoramas of San Francisco. He notoriously shot and killed his wife's lover, but his fame was earned by solving the problems of short-time exposure—and exploiting its possibilities. His subsequent studies of human and animal movement became the ultimate passion of Muybridge, the chronophotographer and predecessor of cinema.