Eadweard Muybridge, Photo-Taking Adventurer

Works In Yosemite Valley, Alaska, Mexico, Central America and States

Oct 26, 2008

Eadweard Muybridge gained fame for his action photos of racehorses and other animals. But he did not photograph exclusively in rather settled environments.

Born in Kingston-upon-Thames, England in 1830, Muybridge was an ambitious and adventurous man who studied photography and photo processing in San Francisco under Carleton E. Watson, well-known for his Yosemite Valley photos. In the spring of 1867 Muybridge first photographed Yosemite, and 20 of those photos were published in John S. Hittell's Yosemite: Its Wonders and Its Beauties With Information Adapted to the Wants of Tourists (1868, shortened title). The Photographic Society in Philadelphia in 1868 passed a resolution praising the quality of these California photos. He went back to Yosemite in 1869 and 1872, a trip during which he spent months photographing the natural wonder.

His photographic journeys to rugged terrain were arduous. Pack animals carried cameras, meals, guns and camping equipment. In addition, chemicals, glass plates on which the negatives were made and a portable darkroom were transported, since the product had to be processed immediately after exposure.

Photographs Lighthouses, Alaska, Montana and Wyoming

In 1868 Muybridge was appointed Director of Photographic Surveys for the federal government. In this capacity he photographed Pacific Coast lighthouses for the Lighthouse Board, the employees of which placed equipment such as buoys and fog horns for the safety of seagoing vessels. The war department sent him to the newly acquired land of Alaska to photograph military outposts, docking places for ships and native Alaskans.

He also photographed Wyoming and Montana and briefly in 1873 the Modoc War being fought in California and Oregon between U. S. soldiers and a group of Native American Modocs. Following his February 1875 acquittal for killing his wife's lover by whom she had a son, Muybridge accepted an assignment from tycoon Leland Stanford to photograph the places serviced by the steamship company in which he had a financial interest.

Photographs Mexico and Central America

He photographed parts of Mexico, Guatemala and Panama. In Mexico he photographed Acapulco, Mazatlan and other cities on the western coast. In Guatemala he photographed native residents, historic sites and all the steps showing coffee beans being grown and processed. In Panama he photographed churches, volcanoes, lakes and historic sites.

Another story--almost the opposite of these photographic adventures--was Muybridge's capture of images in the relatively gentle environments of Sacramento, San Francisco and Palo Alto. In these places he photographed Stanford's mansions and wine-making operations and made panoramic photos of San Francisco..

Mac Donnell, Kevin. Eadweard Muybridge: The Man Who Invented the Moving Picture. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1972.

Haas, Robert Bartlett. Muybridge: Man in Motion. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976.

The copyright of the article Eadweard Muybridge, Photo-Taking Adventurer in Travel Photography is owned by Linda N. Riggins. Permission to republish Eadweard Muybridge, Photo-Taking Adventurer in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.