commercial photographer

By 1872 Muybridge was a capable and successful commercial photographer. In that year Leland Stanford laid a wager with a friend, said to have been $25,000, that a galloping horse lifted all four feet from the ground at once. He asked Muybridge to prove this contention photographically. Using wet plates and under a dazzling California sun, he succeeded in getting faint, highly underexposed plates, which were barely sufficient to settle the wager in Stanford's favor.