Using 24 cameras spaced 27 inches apart, each triggered by a discrete trip wire, Muybridge’s pre-cinema experiment with moving photography—commissioned by horse-fancying politician Leland Stanford to determine equine running patterns—captures, with almost hypnotic beauty, a few seconds flight of a race horse and its jockey. The result—strangely delightful—was screened at the California School of Fine Arts in 1880, and was, perhaps, the first exhibition of its kind.
