page_title: The Horse in Motion
section_title: 1877: The single image of Occident trotting
hierarchical_section_title: The Horse in Motion / Development / 1877: The single image of Occident trotting
caption_attribution_description: English: Title: Occident. Owned by Leland Stanford. Driven by Jas. Tennant Abstract/medium: 1 photographic print&#160;: albumen silver mounted on board.
context_page_description: The Horse in Motion is a series of cabinet cards by Eadweard Muybridge, including six cards that each show a sequential series of six to twelve "automatic electro-photographs" depicting the movement of a horse. Muybridge shot the photographs in June 1878. An additional card reprinted the single image of the horse "Occident" trotting at high speed, which had previously been published by Muybridge in 1877.
  The series became the first example of chronophotography, an early method to photographically record the passing of time, mainly used to document the different phases of locomotion for scientific study. It formed an important step in the development of motion pictures.
  Muybridge's work was commissioned by Leland Stanford, the industrialist, former Governor of California and horseman, who was interested in horse gait analysis.
context_section_description: Over the next few years, Muybridge was occupied with other projects, often travelling to distant places, and with the trial for his murder of the lover of his wife. After his acquittal on the grounds of justifiable homicide, he traveled through Central America for nine months. Eventually, he returned to California and teamed with Stanford for a new attempt at capturing an image of Occident at full speed.  
  In July 1877, Muybridge worked on a series of progressively clearer, single photographs of Occident, at a racing-speed gait at the Union Park Racetrack in Sacramento, California.  He captured the horse in a photograph with all four feet off the ground. One of the prints was sent to the local California press, but because they found that the film negative was retouched, the press dismissed it. As negative retouching was an acceptable and common practice at the time, the photograph won Muybridge an award at the Twelfth San Francisco Industrial Exhibition. Lantern slides of the trotting horse photographs survive.
caption: Occident. Owned by Leland Stanford. Driven by Jas. Tennant. (1877 cabinet card)
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