Athlete Running 5

With his arms close to his chest, the man at the centre of Athlete Running 5 (1881) makes huge strides to gain an advantage over Eadweard Muybridge’s speedy cameras. His black silhouette moves with bravado against a landscape full of light. Only his muscular legs and glutes are sufficiently defined for us to understand the anatomy of his stride. The male body becomes a shadow finding liberation in the act of running. Part of Muybridge's 1881 experimental series on human locomotion, this group of photographs only alludes to the reproduction of reality, leaving the solitary performer and his stage as just a memory of movement, as vivid as a fleeting dream.