The Modoc Campaign and the Intelligence of the Modoc Braves

This photo was taken to represent the Modoc War and the intelligence of the Modoc Braves that was greatly underestimated. The Modoc war was also known as the Modoc Campaign. The U.S. Army needed a photographer to capture the images of the war between the two forces. They hired the photographer who was famous at the time for capturing movement on film, Eadweard Muybridge and titled the photograph of this particular photo “A Modoc Brave on the War Path.” The U.S. Army also could not get an action shot of a Modoc warrior without endangering the life of he photographer so, they hired the Native American in the image, which means he is not a Modoc warrior. Muybridge was the lead photographer for the early part of the war in the early 1870’s and the location of the war was held to the Northeast side of California.

The photo “A Modoc Brave on the War Path” highlights the hatred for the U.S. Army for the Modocs because they are willing to be in miserable conditions just to inflict pain on the Americans. The interesting aspect of the image is that the Native American posing as a Modoc warrior has the correct native dress and environment surrounding him to make the photo as authentic as possible but, he is using a American weapon which makes the photograph look staged. I also think that it's interesting that it looks as though Muybridge just walked onto this scene, but this man is in such a stereotypical pose. The Modoc soldier in the picture uses a stick perhaps to balance the weapon against the rigid stones that he is using for cover against the U.S. forces. As you can see the physic of the Modoc solider so how well in shape they are due to their reliance on solely hand labor to support their livelihood, whether it been hunting or build...

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...o settle a bet of whether all for hooves of a horse were in the air as they ran. This was impossible to be seen by just the human eye alone. So, Muybridge was asked to help by Stanford in which he agreed. Muybridge was never able to perfect the method of motion photography at the time because there was noting for him to work off of, by using 12 cameras to take photographs of the horse running in a sequence shot was able to make the assumption that Stanford’s prediction was correct that all hooves left the ground and were in the air at the same time while galloping. Muybridge went on to have a remarkable academic career which included teaching at the University of Pennsylvania from 1883-1886, publishing several books that explained the processes to capturing motion photographs, then shared the process of a projection device that he invented called the Zoopraxiscope.