Weston Naef on Eadweard Muybridge -> ARTINFO →

Also, at this point in London there seems to be no documentation that Muybridge was interested in art or in photography. This raises the question: When did Muybridge learn the fussy procedures of photography — to operate a camera, and to mix the chemicals required to coat and sensitize a glass plate in the field, and to develop the plate in a tent nearby afterward, and then to make prints from the negatives with nothing but the sun as catalyst? When did he become a photographer?  It typically took other photographers several years of practice to master the steps required for world-class accomplishment.

(via kottke.org)