Welcome to the Bodies in Motion page. This is a small exhibition of photographs from Scott's Bodies in Motion Project.
The goal of the project, inspired by 19th century photographer Eadweard Muybridge, is to capture dynamic photography of the human figure in motion, and make it available as a library for artists and designers around the world. Each motion is captured at 10-12 frames-per-second from multiple camera angles giving the artist multiple high-resolution images for inspiration.
The project continues to expand with new shoots happening quarterly. There are currently over 30 athletes and over 30,000 images in the library capturing a huge variety of motions and body types. We will continue to add samples from these shoots below but the project will soon have its own website and will be made available to artists and agencies in early 2016. If you would like to be on the mailing list for beta testing the site, to inquire about licensing/commissioning photography, or to participate in the project as a model, please contact us here.
I am really enjoying drawing/studying from the material in the Bodies in Motion library (and looking forward to seeing what other artists do with it). This drawing is of an aerial performer, Stephen. He has quite a few sets in the Bodies in Motion library, and honestly, he possesses the perfect body for studying heroic human anatomy. There are countless lessons that can be learned from studying even a few of his images.
Not long ago, I had twelve artists from Natural Motion (of Morpheme and Clumsy Ninja fame) into Somerset House, my home away from home, for a four day anatomy workshop. At the end of each day we would take about 20 minutes to draw from the Bodies in Motion library.
We made extensive use of the timer for timed sketching. The timer can be set to 10fps, 1fps, 30sec, 1min, 2min, or 5mins, and ticks down to zero before flipping to the next frame of the motion sequence. We had it set at 30 seconds per image and we were all drawing frantically trying to keep up. Anyone who goes to life drawing regularly knows this is challenging, but it’s great practice to help capture the essence of a pose – balance, gesture, rough volumes – quickly, without being drawn into the details. Here’s a timelapse of my scribbles (Procreate on Ipad Pro):
timelapse of a sequence of 30 second poses
It was my pleasure to recently photograph jujitsu grandmaster Professor Leon Jay for the Bodies in Motion project. I was able to catch Prof. Jay just before flying to LA for an interview and covershoot for Black Belt magazine. It isn’t everyday you get to hangout with a guy who watched Bruce Lee train in his living room when he was a kid (Prof Jays’s father is Wally Jay, founder of Small Circle Jujitsu and an early teacher of Bruce Lee). During the shoot we photographed a range of jujitsu techniques from dynamic throws to joint locks. After the shoot I asked Prof. Jay to demonstrate a few of his techniques on me, and I can certify first hand that they are painful and effective!
You will be able to check out all the high-resolution sequences at BodiesInMotion.photo in September.
Dynamic reference for artists and designers. Still coming soon, but register interest at www.bodiesinmotion.photo if you haven’t already!
More inspiration of the figure in motion. The agile Chase Armitage from Bodies in Motion V.
Here’s one of my favorites from the Bodies in Motion V shoot. There are still many shots left to develop, but BiM-V was all about martial arts. We had some eye-watering talent on the shoot – a Jujitsu grandmaster, a master of Hapkido, high-level kickboxers, a wushu artist and couple practitioners of exotic, less known martial arts.
A morning anatomy study from Bodies in Motion. Ballet seems to forge the most amazing physiques.
