Plate Number 87. Ascending an incline with a bucket of water in each hand 1887

Eadweard Muybridge made this photographic plate to study human locomotion. It shows a woman carrying buckets up an inclined plane. The material here isn’t just photographic emulsion on paper, but also the labor materialized through the model’s actions, and the photographer’s work behind the camera. Think about how the material of photography itself—its capacity to capture a moment, slice time into discrete units— enabled Muybridge to break down movement into individual frames. The motion study was part of a larger scientific exploration to understand movement in unprecedented detail, and also tied to the industrial age’s desire to quantify and standardize labor. The real subject is thus the industrial-era body. As machines redefined work, the human form became newly fascinating as an object of study and improvement. Muybridge gives us an early glimpse into the making and remaking of the human body as a kind of productive material. This image blurs the line between art, science, and the broader social forces shaping the modern world.