Posts Tagged Photography

Photo Credit: William M. Vander Weyde/George Eastman House Collection

Female bather enjoying her day at a beach in Atlantic City around 1905. What a lovely photograph!

Photo Credit: NASA

“(Aug. 13, 1969) New York City welcomes the three Apollo 11 astronauts, Neil A. Armstrong, Michael Collins, and Buzz Aldrin, Jr., in a showering of ticker tape down Broadway and Park Avenue, in a parade termed at the time as the largest in the city’s history.”

Muybridge sequence of a horse galloping (Source).

In 1872, Leland Stanford, an industrialist and horseman, commissioned English photographer Eadweard Muybridge to help determine whether a horse ever lifts all four feet completely off the ground at any given time during a trot or gallop.  While trying to figure out Stanford’s question Muybridge invented a motion picture projector and new photographic techniques.

Photo Credits: Wikimedia Commons/Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley

After over five years of experiments and engineering, Stanford finally got his answer when Muybridge was able to build a camera that was up to the job. Not just one camera, but a dozen of them!

Muybridge lined all 12 cameras alongside the track. As the horse passed the cameras, it would trigger strings that would activate the shutters one at a time and in sequence. Among the resulting images was Stanford’s answer: Yes, all four hooves leave the ground, briefly, during a trot.

Not completely satisfied, Stanford wanted to try it again but with a galloping horse to see if it the result was the same. In June 1878, Muybridge repeated the exercise with a galloping horse. However, this time he doubled the amount of cameras from 12 to 24 and placed them 27 inches apart.

The horse, Sallie Gardner, kicked the camera strings as she galloped by. In order to reflect as much light as possible, the track was lined with cloth sheets.

The Horse in Motion by Eadweard Muybridge. “Sallie Gardner,” owned by Leland Stanford; running at a 1:40 gait over the Palo Alto track, June 19, 1878. Photo Credit: Library of Congress

In order to display the images, Muybridge created what is considered to be the first movie projector – a Zoopraxiscope. He would copy the images in the form of silhouettes onto glass disks. When rotated, the images appeared as if in motion and one rotation lasted about 3 seconds.

While Sallie Gardner at a Gallop was an experiment, it was also one of the earliest silent films. Muybridge achieved many impressive photographic feats during his lifetime and was considered a pioneer in photographic studies of motion and motion picture projection.

[Zim's Note: Since I could not find any place within this post to organically include the following two "trivia" facts about Muybridge and Stanford, I decided to just include it here as a footnote.

• Muybridge literally got away with murder in 1874. He was prosecuted and acquitted in the murder of his young wife's lover, Harry Larkyns, a San Francisco Post drama critic. The jury found that the killing was a justifiable homicide under "unwritten law."
• In 1885, Leland Stanford founded Stanford University along with his wife Jane as a memorial for their only child Leland Stanford, Jr., who died of typhoid fever at the age of fifteen. Stanford University's official name is actually "Leland Stanford Junior University."]

Sources
Leslie, Mitchell, “The Man Who Stopped Time,” Stanford Alumni Magazine, May/June 2001.
Joe Rayment, “Eadweard J. Muybridge – one of the original men in motion – celebrated with a Google Doodle,” National Post, April 9, 2012.
Joe Stanford, “Cantor exhibit showcases motion-study photography,” Stanford Report, February 12, 2003.
“Sallie Gardner at a Gallop,” San Francisco Museum.
“The Birth of the University,” Stanford University.

Photo Credit: National Archives

“Four young members of the Madison Square Boy’s Club rowing a boat in a rooftop pool, Manhattan skyscrapers in the background, Feb. 1950.” With such little space in New York City, I guess people have to get their training in anywhere they can…

Photo Credit: Lewis Hine/Works Progress Administration (National Archives)

Frederick and Dimmock spinning glass wool at a factory in Millville, New Jersey on March 26, 1937.

Photo Credit: National Archives

Massive crowd photographed on the Lake Michigan beach in Chicago, ca. 1925.

Photo Credit: Burgert Brothers/State Archives of Florida (Florida Memory)

Horse-drawn ambulance in Tampa, Florida around 1912.

Photo Credit: Vern C. Gorst/University of Washington Libraries

These “Spruce Girls” are posing on the beach while wearing spruce wood veneer bathing suits. The girls were promoting products for Gray Harbor lumber industry during “Wood Week” in Hoquiam, Washington, ca. 1929.

Four “Spruce Girls” wearing wood veneer bathing suits standing in the surf. Photo Credit: Vern C. Gorst/University of Washington Libraries

“Spruce Girls” Photo Credit: Vern C. Gorst/University of Washington Libraries

Five “Spruce Girls” standing on railway car. Photo Credit: Vern C. Gorst/University of Washington Libraries

“Spruce Girls” with large umbrella. Photo Credit: Vern C. Gorst/University of Washington Libraries

Bathing under a large umbrella, these “Spruce Girls,” wearing wood veneer bathing suits, are holding small boards shaped like feet. Photo Credit: Vern C. Gorst/University of Washington Libraries

Photo Credit: Gertrude Käsebier/George Eastman House Collection

This photo is simply entitled “Dancing School” and was taken by influential early 20th century photographer Gertrude Käsebier. She was especially known for her eloquent images of motherhood, which can be seen in this 1905 photograph that may depict three young girls and their mother dancing.

Image Credit: NASA (AS11-40-5886)

“(July 20, 1969) Apollo 11 astronauts trained on Earth to take individual photographs in succession in order to create a series of frames that could be assembled into panoramic images. This frame from Aldrin’s panorama of the Apollo 11 landing site is the only good picture of mission commander Neil Armstrong on the lunar surface.”

Charles “Old Hoss” Radbourn (top left in the photo) was the first documented public figure photographed “giving the finger.”

Nicknamed “Old Hoss”, Radbourn was a pitcher who played 12 seasons in Major League Baseball. A butcher by trade, Radbourn made his MLB debut in 1880 with the Buffalo Bisons. He then played for the Providence Grays (1881–1885), Boston Beaneaters (1886–1889), Boston Red Stockings (1890) and Cincinnati Reds (1891). Baseball was not his only claim to fame. In a 1886 photograph of the Boston Beaneaters (Radbourn was their pitcher) and their rivals, the New York Giants, Radbourn was photographed extending his middle finger to the camera, the earliest known photograph of a public figure using this gesture.

Baseball pitcher Old Hoss Radbourn pictured giving the finger to cameraman, 1886. (Back row, far left). First known photograph of the gesture. Photo Credit: 19th Century Baseball

Detail from 1886 Boston/New York team photo. The only pitcher in the history of major league baseball to win 60 games in a single season, Charles “Old Hoss” Radbourn extends his middle finger towards the camera. Photo Credit: 19th Century Baseball

Also of interest: Radbourn and “Charley Horse”

Information and Photographs via 19th Century Baseball

Photo Credit: The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

“On August 25, 1944, crowds of people line the Champs Elysees to watch the Allied soldiers ride into Paris through the Arc de Triomphe in tanks, half tracks and on and motorcycles. A large sign on the right side of the street reads, “Vive de Gaulle.” On the left, another reads, “De Gaulle au pouvoir.” French General Charles de Gaulle organized the “Free French Forces” in England during World War II and later became President of France.”

William M. Vander Weyde/George Eastman House Collection

William M. Vander Weyde/George Eastman House Collection

William M. Vander Weyde/George Eastman House Collection

William M. Vander Weyde/George Eastman House Collection

William M. Vander Weyde/George Eastman House Collection

“Women Bowling,” ca. 1900. William M. Vander Weyde captures a bowling game between two women around the turn of the century. To some, the women seem to emit an eerie glow. Everything else in the black and white photograph is in stark focus the women are not, giving them an ethereal quality. Did Weyde plan the photo shot on a staged set or are these merely candid shots of friendly game in a dark and wooden bowling aisle? But, more importantly, did you notice there are only two finger holes?! I can barely bowl with the three finger holes that modern bowling balls now have…and by barely, I mean not at all.

James Knox Polk, three-quarter length portrait, three-quarters to the right, seated. Photo Credit: Mathew Brady/Library of Congress

James K. Polk, the 11th President of the United States, was the first president to be photographed while in office. The daguerreotype was taken by famous photographer Matthew Brady in New York City on February 14, 1849. Polk was also the first president to be extensively photographed during his presidency.

White House History