Sequential Images: Initial Research

In class we have been discussing sequential images and looking at photographers that have made these.  We began by looking at the original master of the sequential image Eadweard Muybridge

Animal Locomotion: Plate 293 (Nude Man Playing Cricket), 1887 Eadweard Muybridge

Eadweard Muybridge was a pioneer in photography who studies the motion of animals and humans. Between 1884 and 1887 he created the 'project “Animal Locomotion” between 1884 and 1887 for the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia. Each plate in the series shows the same subject in sequential phases of one action. Muybridge recorded varied forms of movement in a wide range of animals, mostly taken at Philadelphia zoo, from pigeons in flight to the subtleties of gait found in sloths, camels and capybaras. Muybridge also documented human subjects walking, running and descending staircases and engaging in boxing, fencing, weight lifting and wrestling.' (Huxley-Parlour 2019) 

Animal Locomotion: Plate 158 (Man Performing a High Jump), 1887 Eadweard Muybridge

These images were made using the collotype process.  Collotype comes from the Greek word 'kola' meaning 'glue'  as it uses a gelatin-based surface for the print and 'was invented by Alphonse-Louis Poitevin (French, 1819–1882) in 1855, with early application of the process demonstrated by F. Joubert in 1859.' (Stulik D.C. 2013. p4).  This process was used for large volume printing using a mechanical process prior to cheaper offset lithography.  These images of movement really were the first of their kind and allowed the study of movement through photography.

We also looked at Sam Taylor-Johnson (nee Wood) and her sequential images - these images show a more contempiorary sequence using contemporary techniques in this case color photography using Chromogenic dye coupler print in these images clearly the ropes and pulleys keeping the artist suspended have been removed (digitally or through manipulation of the negatives in the darkroom).

There is something joyful about these images - the idea of being suspending and escaping with teh use of just coloured balloons.  a fantasy that is a reality within the frame. 

 

Sam Taylor- Johnson, Escape Artist in Levis (2008)

References

Huxley Parlour (2019) Eadweard Muybridge, Animal Locomotion [Online] Available From; https://huxleyparlour.com/exhibitions/eadweard-muybridge/ (Accessed 01/10/19)

Stulik D.C. (2013) The Atlas of Analytical Signatures of Photographic Processes: Collotype [Online] Available from: https://www.getty.edu/conservation/publications_resources/pdf_publications/pdf/atlas_collotype.pdf Accessed 01/10/19