Freezing Time: The Autobiography of Eadweard Muybridge

I have just finished reading Freezing Time: The Autobiography of Eadweard Muybridge by Keith Stern.  It wasn't necessarily a book I was dying to read.  I just came across a copy of it and thought I'd give it a go.  The book looks at the lives of four interesting characters that shaped the life and work of the early photographer Eadweard Muybridge.  We have Muybridge himself at the narrator of the story.  His wife Flora who was half his age.  Her lover the con man Larkyns and Senator Leland Stanford the benefactor of Muybridge's work.

It's an interesting read if somewhat strange at times but that in part is due the narrator himself.  I suppose Muybridge is most famous for his work on horses particularly Horse in Motion.  However, the book introduces us to his landscape work at Yosemite, his attempts at photojournalism and the work he did of Chinese workers on the railroads and of the native American people.  The book also introduces us to what became his most important work - the motion picture what was to eventually become the movie.

I think the most striking thing about his photography and his approach to his work is that it is a science and not an art.  This of course opens the old debate of whether photography is art at all.  At the time that he was working photography was very much in its infancy and had limitations, some which he was keen to explore.

I think the most I got out of this books was an insight into the work and commitment of early pioneers of photography.  I think that with modern technology the camera is something we take for granted and few know how it actually works.  I think this is an interesting concept - the idea that people take more pictures that ever before and most have even less control over how they are made.  It also shows the change in the meaning of a photograph.  Muybridge used his images to prove scientific facts and make discoveries.  Today images are used to such a mass extent that their meaning (if there was indeed any in the first place) has been lost.

Muybridge is portrayed as a disturbed genius who led a colourful life.  His legacy can be seen in the work of others like Thomas Eakins, Thomas Edison and Francis Bacon.