Athlete Swinging a Pick (1881) User Reviews

After Sallie galloped...

[AlsExGal · 6/10 · 3 July 2023]

... photographer Edweard Muybridge continued his studies underwritten by the University of Pennsylvania. He did studies on the motion of animals and of humans, mainly for artistic purposes rather than scientific ones. He would often use young women in various stages of undress for these experiments.

One of Muybridge's models was himself, as he is shown here, naked swinging a pick axe. Muybridge always considered himself trim and athletic, even when in old age, and he was close to that here, at age 51. Why a pick axe? Muybridge liked to think of himself as somebody who helped tame the wild west, and perhaps to him a pick axe was a sign of that wild west.

Although Muybridge was supposedly studying motion, he often photographed his female models doing things that "nice" women did not do at the time - such as smoking. It is hard to figure out what can be learned of motion by photographing women smoking.

2.24.2024

[EasonVonn · 6/10 · 24 February 2024]

With this rough frame rate there is quite a sense of experimentation 18 shots seem to have been exposed at different times. The nudes are quite With this rough frame rate there is quite a sense of experimentation 18 shots seem to have been exposed at different times. The nudes are quite With this rough frame rate there is quite a sense of experimentation 18 shots seem to have been exposed at different times. The nudes are quite With this rough frame rate there is quite a sense of experimentation 18 shots seem to have been exposed at different times. The nudes are quite With this rough frame rate there is quite a sense of experimentation 18 shots seem to have been exposed at different times. The nudes are quite good.

An oldie from 1881

[ashfordofficial · 1/10 · 28 November 2021]

Eadweard Muybridge himself poses nude and swings a miner's pick, in 18 different photographs. Earliest known "live action" short film. One of the first progenitors of modern cinema.

Eadweard Muybridge

[boblipton · 7/10 · 19 January 2020]

Eadweard Muybridge is an important figure in the evolution of the cinema because of his weird name, enormous beard, and his series of photographs showing a galloping horse in 1878; assembled, they can be considered the first motion picture. By 1887, he had produced forty-eight others. This was his second.

You can guess what it's about from its title. The naked man shown is Muybridge himself. Although, because of its original technique and (almost certainly) exhibition, it isn't a movie as we understand the term, it is a study of movement. Combined with equipment to record and display pictures over time, and using techniques derived from an understanding of persistence of vision, it remains a key step in the rise of this still-young (because of the antiquity of others) art.

Also because the subject suggests the first 'true' motion picture, Edison's BLACKSMITH SCENE.

Muybridge Continues

[view_and_review · 7/10 · 5 September 2022]

This is supposed to be Eadweard Muybridge in this moving picture swinging a pick. If so, then he is the same Eadweard Muybridge that produced "Sallie Gardner at a Gallop," the very first "movie" which was of a Black American jockey riding a horse. He used twelve different cameras in a line to photograph the horse in motion, I'm not sure how he made this movie considering he is in the same spot. If he'd used twelve cameras here then we'd most likely see him swinging a pick from twelve different angles.

Muybridge is allegedly nude in this motion picture. Fortunately, the camera technology back then wasn't such where we can really tell. Though that would be funny that one of history's first films would be rated 'R' today.

On YouTube.