Pferd und Reiter springen über ein Hindernis

1888 26 seconds

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About Pferd und Reiter springen über ein Hindernis

A horse and rider take a wooden jump. The camera stays put for the approach, the leap, and the landing.

More about Pferd und Reiter springen über ein Hindernis

Ottomar Anschütz made the chronophotographic series in Hanover. It is dated 31 May 1888. A surviving assembly of the frames runs 26 seconds. He photographed it himself.

Themes

  • One jump, start to landing
  • A rider and a horse in Hanover
  • horse
  • jump
  • rider
  • Hanover
  • Anschütz
  • chronophotography

Background

He made it in 1888, in the same years as his other high-speed studies of animals and riders, before public cinema.

Making

Anschütz set the camera at the side of a jump in Hanover and recorded the horse through the leap. Playback was a short loop on his Schnellseher.

Look

Anschütz used a fixed side view and a fast shutter so the horse stays readable through the jump.

Technique

The jump was recorded as sequential photographs and replayed as a 26-second loop.

Preservation

A 26-second assembly of the frames survives.

Notes

  • The German title means a horse and rider jump an obstacle.
  • Anschütz showed motion on machines he called the Schnellseher, also known as the Tachyscope.
  • The series belongs with his Hanover studies of military riders taking jumps.
  • It is a run of photographs replayed as motion, not a story film on a celluloid reel.

Scenes

  • The horse leaves the ground, clears the wooden obstacle, and lands, all in one fixed view.

Also available

  • Internet Archive (pferd-und-reiter-springen-uber-ein-hindernis-1888)
  • Wikimedia Commons (Pferd und Reiter Springen uber ein Hindernis.webm)