Democratic Sentinel, Volume 3, Number 40, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 November 1879 — Instantaneous Photography. [ARTICLE]

Instantaneous Photography.

Mr. Maybridge’s method of photographing horses in rapid motion has lately been applied in San Francisco to the study of human action, particularly that of athletes, while performing their various feats. In order to display as completely as possible the movements of the actors’ muscles, they wore brief trunks only while performing, and thus all the intricate movements of boxing, wrestliug, fencing, jumping and tumbling were instantaneously and exactly pictured. Tho first experiment consisted in photographing an athlete while turning a back somersault. He stood iu front of the camera, motionless, and at a sign sprung into the air, turned backward, and in a second was again in his original position. Short as was the time consumed fourteen negatives were clearly taken, showing him in as many different positions. The same man was aloo taken while making a running high jump. The jumping-gauge was placed at the 4foot notch in order to give an easy jump, for in making it fourteen stout hempen strings had to be broken, as in photographing trotting horses. From the camera to a point beyond the line on which the jump was made a number of strings were stretched. The two base lines were only a few inches above the ground, and from them to the apex the strings were placed equal distances apart. In jumping, seven of the strings were broken in ascending and seven in descending. The strings were tautly drawn, and so connected with the camera that as each one parted a negative was produced. Other pictures were taken of men raising heavy -dumb-bells' and the various movements of boxing fencing and the like. —London Times