Response

Time waits for no man. That is, until a man named Edward Muybridge came along, kicked time in the shins, and ran far, far ahead of it. Muybridge wasted no time, whether he was killing his wife’s lover, dumping his son in an orphanage, or changing the face of photography as we know it. And who can blame him for wanting to move so quickly? Look at the time he was born into. The train was just beginning to race across the countryside, and nothing would stand in the way of its speed. Mountains were being plowed through, miles and miles of rail were built, and people were shooting across the country faster than they could ever have imagined. This was Muybridge’s world, a world of speed, a world where waiting was a thing of the past. So it’s no wonder that the new invention of photography became his chosen profession. An art form that was instantaneous, an art form where real moments were captured, and could be seen and shared by everyone. But it was art that was still too slow for Muybridge. Exposures took minutes, and objects moving even at a snails pace were nothing but a blur. Had anyone else attempted to change the way photography worked, they may have failed. But Muybridge, coming from a place where time moved quicker, and space grew smaller, was the right man for the job.
Today, our concept of time and space is vastly different than it was for Muybridge, or anyone else who lived in the mid and late 1800’s. What the train was for them is the airplane for us. Their telegraph became our e-mail. And even though Muybridge found a way to take a photograph in a fraction of a second, today we can do the same, and then see the results a fraction of a second later. If by some strange occurrence Muybridge leapt out of his grave today, he would probably die of shock just a few seconds after seeing the speed of which everything moves now. We live in a world where we, and everything around us is constantly moving forward, and always at a faster rate. But because of this constant change and speed, photography becomes more and more important to us. It allows us time in a world always moving forward, to stop and look back. It is a still and frozen testament to what was, and is no more. The image gives us a chance to stop and breathe, before having to move on again. I take comfort in that, knowing that an image never has anywhere to go, and is perfectly fine where it is. And although we may constantly be moving, it will always be there waiting for you, whenever you want to come back to see it again.

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