Slide Show: Gjon Mili and the Science of Movement

The Albanian-American photographer Gjon Mili was hailed for his work illustrating entire sequences of human movement in a single photograph—a sight previously unseen in the mid-twentieth century. He was able to capture such images using stroboscopic photography, a technique that combines an electronic flash unit with prolonged exposure times to create studied models of movement and gesture, which Mili pioneered while studying electrical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. From musicians to athletes, here is a look at just a few of Mili’s thousands of subjects.

All photographs by Gjon Mili/Time Life Pictures/Getty.