Athlete Running High Leap

The sportsman in Athlete Running High Leap (1881) executes a rather impressive leap over a hurdle. This routine seems most suitable for effectively utilising the full track laid out by Eadweard Muybridge at Palo Alto Stock Farm. Given the speed of the action and the shifting point of view, the cameras were capable of capturing each movement with notable accuracy. With this study, we see Muybridge gaining a firmer grasp of which gestures yield greater clarity of detail and smoother continuity between frames. Understanding the precise speed required to reproduce motion through photography would lead to technological advance, which in turn encouraged audiences’ embracement of chronophotography as a new medium of entertainment.