Google doodle pays homage to photographer Eadweard Muybridge

An interactive doodle—a series of photographs that move to depict a galloping horse in motion—was search giant Google's tribute to photographer Eadweard Muybridge on his 182nd birth anniversary on Monday.

Visitors to Google's homepage were greeted with an interactive doodle showing a series of photos of a horse galloping.

 

Clicking on the doodle would make the series of photos move, giving the impression the horse is in motion.

 

As with past doodles, another click on the doodle would take the visitor to a Google search results page for Eadweard Muybridge.

 

The doodle has its roots in a series of stopped-action motion studies completed in 1887.

 

At the time, Muybridge photographed a horse in motion using a number of cameras, after his friend Leland Stanford, railroad magnate and governor of California, made a bet that when a horse gallops, at some point all four of its feet are off the ground at the same time.

 

Born in England as Edward James Muggeridge, Muybridge specialized in landscape and architectural photography, and became famous for his photos of Yosemite Valley.

 

Muybridge suspected his wife of having an affair with one Major Harry Larkyns, and bearing him a son.

 

He confronted Larkyns and shot him. Muybridge was then tried for murder but got acquitted as the jury ruled it was “justifiable homicide,” said an article on forgottennewsmakers.com. –KG, GMA News