Every time I title a First Photo I have a challenge with the definition of Photography.

Looking for the first photo of a kiss I’ve bumped into Muybridge’s plate 444 and in that video recreated by Dave Gordon, an artist and the Curator of the Muybridge Archive and I was surprised it was considered The First Filmed Kiss, as I know by other sources the First Kiss on a Movie. Even considering the subtile distance between both the definitions, I’ve been shocked that Muybridge could be considered a movie director more than a photographer.

A couple of days ago I’ve been asked if the First Photo of Muybridge is just the first frame on the left top of the corner. I radically said no. The First Photo on a Muybridge’s plate is not the image corresponding to the first still. What makes his work recognizable is the layout of the whole plate framing the images in sequence, is the invention of the stripe background anticipating the mug photos. The stripes in the background were ropes stretched by a framework, and their division into squares were helpful for the study of the anatomic proportion, as in painting. The layout and the background were corresponding to scientific method. And that scientific mark in serial is his beauty.

Muybridge invented and created a new way to think in images. If we see just the movie and not his graphic composition we couldn’t admire his great work. Muybridge was thinking by plate. And specially we have to remember that at that time cinema was yet not invented. So I would ask: is it possible to create a video when there are yet no instrument to show the video? Probably Muybridge style is the most recognizable at all … even by a person who doesn’t know the History of Photography. He is also called the inventor of the first moving picture. I will ask to the Muybridge Online Archives if they have evidences that Muybridge was thinking about doing a movie, if he was showing his photos in a different way than a plate.