Unlike the motion studies of Eadweard Muybridge, who depicted movement as a series of discrete moments on separate, sequential negatives, Etienne-Jules Marey's analyses of motion are characterized by multiple exposures on a single photographic plate. In this photograph, Charles Fremont, a civil engineer who assisted Marey in his laboratory, used Marey's method to study blacksmiths at the anvil; the dynamic synthesis of their arced blows traced the pattern of manual effort involved in the task. Fremont's photographic investigations into the conservation and expenditure of energy during human labor established principles that laid the foundation for modern industrial production. Etienne-Jules Marey (March 5, 1830 - May 21, 1904) was a French scientist, physiologist and chronophotographer. He started by studying blood circulation in the human body. Then shifted to analyzing heart beats, respiration, muscles (myography), and movement of the body. He became fascinated by movements of air and started to study birds. He adopted and further developed animated photography into a separate field of chronophotography in the 1880s. His revolutionary idea was to record several phases of movement on one photographic surface. In 1882 he made his chronophotographic gun. This instrument was capable of taking 12 consecutive frames a second, and the most interesting fact is that all the frames were recorded on the same picture, using these pictures he studied mammals, birds, fish, microscopic creatures, mollusks, insects and reptiles. His research on how to capture and display moving images helped the emerging field of cinematography. His last great work was the observation and photography of smoke trails. In 1901 he was able to build a smoke machine with 58 smoke trails. It became one of the first aerodynamic wind tunnels. He died at the age of 74. |