Sta.sh
Well his photography is really quite unique for the time, he set up multiple cameras for his shots in order to capture motion in the form of stop-action photography. He was also known for creating the zoopraxiscope, which plays a series of images in order to create the illusion of motion, in other words very early animation work! These series of images were on disc that were spun and projected, so the images loop in sequence. Kind of like your first generation animated gifs!
His photography work and his zoopraxiscope helped people to study in detail how things move. From the way people walk, jumping, running through to horses galloping. And as a tutor once said to me, if you can animate a horse, you can animate anything. These images surprised many people, such as when a horse runs, there is a phase when all their legs are actually off the ground.
So naturally these become a fantastic resources for animators and filmmakers alike for generations to come. His work is still used to this very day as valuable reference not only to artists, but also to scientists and is shown in gallery exhibitions. Without his pioneering work animation and films won't be where they are today. Even the modern filming technique 'bullet time' was inspired by his work. I will conclude this with a short video loop of one of his original studies of horses. Thanks Muybridge for being one of the founding fathers of modern animation!
He really was! I was lucky that an exhibition of his was in London one year when I was down there, he was definitely a pioneer.
Also I recommend if you can find his work, William Kentridge. He's a south African artist and I've seen his work, he's also a friend of one of my old university tutors.
He's done some great animation work!
Funny story...
One of my old lecturers had her work entered for a competition few years back and Kentridge was a judge. He hated it so much that he ripped it off the wall.
A year later the work got put on one of our national stamps by the government.