Beginnings
	In 1851, twenty-one-year-old Edward James Muggeridge left England to seek fame and fortune in New York City. Inventive, adventurous, and equipped with a new name, "Eadwerd Muygridge" headed west to the bustling city of San Francisco, where he realized there was money to be made in photography. A stagecoach accident stopped him from pursuing his new career.

	Helios and the Flying Studio
	By the time Muybridge returned to San Francisco in 1867, photography had become all the rage. Stereo views had become enormously popular; local photographers couldn't crank out scenes of San Francisco and the Wild West fast enough. Determined to make a name for himself, Muybridge adopted the pseudonym ñHelios" and traveled the city in a horse-drawn carriage he dubbed "The Flying Studio." During the next fifteen years, the industrious photographer snapped over a thousand pictures in the San Francisco Bay area. The pictures made Muybridge famous. He spent six years traveling the length of the Pacific Coast for the government, photographing everything from Alaskan natives to vineyards in Napa, perfecting his craft. His photos from an 1872 Yosemite trip won him national acclaim and international awards -- and attracted the attention of railroad magnate Leland Stanford.

	Motion Captured
	It was an age-old question: did a trotting horse ever have all four feet off the ground at once? Use Lady Moscow In 1872, sportsmen, writers, and editors argued vehemently over the answer. Artists from classical sculptors to Currier & Ives had depicted trotting horses in a variety of ways, none of which seemed correct. Thousands of dollars were wagered. Millionaires ordered measurements made, without result. A French physiologist was consulted -- to no avail. Exasperated, California millionaire Leland Stanford hired Muybridge to take an "instantaneous" photograph of Occident, the Wonder Horse. It was an impossible task, a fool's errand: in one second, Occident would run thirty yards -- a blur on a photographic plate. Yet Muybridge was undaunted. With the aid of a "special exposing apparatus," he captured crisp silhouettes of the Wonder Horse. Some clearly showed all four of Occident's hooves in the air. Muybridge's achievement made him the talk of San Francisco. They would soon have other reasons to talk about him.

	Scandal: The Harry Larkyns Affair A workaholic, Muybridge had little time for social life. He met his future wife in a local photo studio, where she was working as a retoucher. Though details of their romance are sketchy, we know that Flora Stone met Muybridge, then divorced her first husband. Flora was twenty-one, pretty, and sociable; Muybridge was twice her age, and preoccupied with his work. While Muybridge was away, Flora began an affair with bon vivant Harry Larkyns. Learning of the affair, the distraught photographer traveled to Napa, confronted Larkyns at a party, and shot him to death at point-blank range. The murder and trial were covered extensively in the local papers. Sitting in Napa Jail, Muybridge expressed no remorse for killing Larkyns. Some of the photographerÍs friends testified that he had become mentally unbalanced after his 1860 stagecoach accident. Public opinion supported the betrayed husband, and a jury acquitted him. Upon his release, Muybridge immediately left for Central America. In MuybridgeÍs absence, Leland Stanford became increasingly interested in animal locomotion. When the photographer returned, Stanford hired him to resume his instantaneous photography experiments, experiments that would radically change our perception of motion itself.

	San Francisco Panoramas
	To publicize his return, Muybridge scaled the unfinished tower of a Nob Hill mansion, set up his large format camera, and took thirteen images of the city beneath him. The resulting 360-degree panorama was an unprecedented achievement -- and a visual paradox. Though it is completely believable as a flat landscape, it only represents San Francisco if it encircles the viewer. Eadweard Muybridge's panorama challenged its 19th-century viewers' notions of space and representation. Even more extraordinary work would follow.

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