Time stands still : Muybridge and the instantaneous photography movement /

Early photography innovator Eadweard Muybridge (1830-1904; he went by an assortment of names and alternative spellings) is primarily known for his photographic series of animals in motion, begun in the 1870s, that led to cinematography. Not a biography, this catalogue to a touring exhibition is instead both a critical overview of Muybridge's aesthetic achievements in photography and an engaging history of the instantaneous photography movement, a set of innovations that swept away the excruciatingly long exposure-times of then-conventional photography, and of which Muybridge's motion studies were a part. St. Louis Art Museum assistant curator Prodger makes an excellent selection of photographs, from the first known "snapshot" of two women in a window (attributed to David E. James & Co., circa 1855) to Muybridge's own famous studies of horse gaits. It is amazing to read about the fierce debates over what constituted an "instant photograph," bringing home how much we take for granted today with our unobtrusive split-second cameras. Muybridge himself remains a mysterious figure, a center of continuing controversy and tall tales, much of it due to the murder of his wife's lover. However, his technological achievements often overshadowed his aesthetic innovations-it is this oversight that this volume seeks to remedy, by definitively repositioning Muybridge's work within the history of photography and of art itself. (Nov.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Eadweard Muybridge's best-known photography, completed during the 1870s and 1880s, captures the motion of moving people and animals in a series of frames. Difficult to classify, these works fall somewhere between photography and cinema. Prodger's book, which accompanies an exhibition that will travel through 2004, links Muybridge to a loosely associated group of 19th-century photographers he identifies as the "instantaneous photography movement." The author also examines various definitions of instantaneous photography, which involves the instant capture of a natural moment without lengthy film exposure. Prodger (assistant curator, prints, drawings, and photographs, St. Louis Art Museum) is successful in relating Muybridge's work to that of numerous other photographers of the instantaneous movement by analyzing pictorial compositions and comparing photographic techniques. An additional essay by Tom Gunning, a film expert at the University of Chicago, adds illuminating comparisons of Muybridge's work to symbolist painting. Prodger's thoughtful analysis is recommended for academic libraries, while Gordon Hendricks's recently reprinted Eadweard Muybridge: The Father of the Motion Picture is a more general biography suitable for most public libraries.-Eric Linderman, East Cleveland P.L., OH (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.