New iPhone Photo App: Muybridgizer
Saturday, October 9, 2010 at 5:23PM | Glyn Evans 
To coincide with the Eadweard Muybridge exhibition at the Tate Britain, which runs from the 8th September 2010 to the 16th January 2011, the Tate Gallery have released the Muybridgizer app.
App Store Description: The Muybridgizer allows iPhone photographers to take pictures inspired by the iconic works of early photographer Eadweard Muybridge. The release of the app celebrates the opening of a major exhibition of Muybridge’s work at Tate Britain (8 September 2010 – 16 January 2011).
The Muybridgizer freeze-frames the moving world, just as Muybridge did with subjects ranging from running horses to leapfrogging boys. In homage to the analogue Victorian beauty of the originals, users can Muybridge-ize their frames with grids and sepia tones, transforming their moving images into striking vintage-style pictures.
App Store Link: Muybridgizer; Price: FREE
** Free for a limited time **
Editors comments: Grab it while it's free, but don't expect too much from this app.
Who was Eadweard Muybridge?
"Eadweard J. Muybridge was an English photographer who spent much of his life in the United States. He is known for his pioneering work on animal locomotion which used multiple cameras to capture motion, and his zoopraxiscope, a device for projecting motion pictures that pre-dated the flexible perforated film strip." [Source: Wikipedia]
About the exhibition
"Muybridge was the man who famously proved a horse can fly. Adapting the very latest technology to his ends, he proved his theory by getting a galloping horse to trigger the shutters of a bank of cameras. This experiment proved indisputably for the first time what no eye had previously seen – that a horse lifts all four hooves off the ground at one point in the action of running. Seeking a means of sharing his ground-breaking work, he invented the zoopraxiscope, a method of projecting animated versions of his photographs as short moving sequences, which anticipated subsequent developments in the history of cinema.
British-born Eadweard Muybridge, who emigrated to the United States in the 1850s, is one of the most influential photographers of all time. He pushed the limits of the camera's possibilities, creating world-famous images of animals and humans in motion. Just as impressive are his vast panoramas of American landscapes, such as the Yosemite valley, and his documentation of the rapidly growing nation, particularly in San Francisco. His dramatic life included extensive travels in North and Central America, a career as a successful lecturer, and the scandal of his trial for the murder of his wife's lover.
This exhibition brings together the full range of his art for the first time, and explores the ways in which Muybridge created and honed his remarkable images, which continue to resonate with artists today. Highlights include a seventeen foot panorama of San Francisco and recreations of the zoopraxiscope in action. His influence has forever changed our understanding and interpretation of the world, and can be found in many diverse fields, from Marcel Duchamp's painting Nude Descending a Staircase and countless works by Francis Bacon, to the blockbuster film The Matrix and Philip Glass's opera The Photographer.
In addition to Muybridge at Tate Britain, his birthplace Kingston upon Thames celebrates and investigates its unique Muybridge Collection with special exhibitions at Kingston Museum and at the Stanley Picker Gallery, Kingston University. Visit the Muybridge in Kingston website for more information."
Eadweard Muybridge at the Tate Britain, runs from the 8th September 2010 to the 16th January 2011. For more information, visit the Tate Britain website.
Reader Comments (8)
Unless I'm missing something, this app will only create low res results. Also, its too specialized to be of general interest. But hey, it's free!
I have been playing with this app a bit and it's rather boring, but what would help to make it a nice app would be the ability to save the images as an animated gif.
I think its fun to watch the little animations, but yeah it'd be funner to watch them off the phone somehow. It's worth free for a couple smiles
That was cool that you included a short history of Muybridge in your post! Thanks, Glyn!
=M=
The app sounds neat and I really enjoyed reading the short history of Muybridge.
Thanks!
Marty, thanks, I hope to bring more of this type of info with posts where appropriate.
Accidentally, I just stumbled upon the same Muybridge photos being used in PhotoPuppet for iPad - http://www.youtube.com/v/7nPhFmpdRuU&hl - it seems that this app has much more to offer...
BTW you may check http://www.photopuppet.me