I posted earlier today about Bradley Cook, the Curator of Photographs in the Office of University Archives and Records Management at Indiana University. Bradley had shared with me a link to a photograph of Lloyd Messersmith’s measuring device.
For the best part of twenty-years, I thought Lloyd’s measuring wheel was a pastry cutter, taped up to give scaled readings of distance as Lloyd traced the distances traversed by basketball players.
As a result of Bradley’s work and the sharing of this photograph
… it is probable he used a swivel caster from a chair. This is Bradley’s take:
When you take a look at the image you can see how thick the metal frame is that holds the wheel. My guess is that he purchased a swivel caster to make it easier to go back and forth and make turns while following the player’s movement.
This would have made Lloyd’s measurements even more agile than I had anticipated. I am now thinking Lloyd is the Eadweard Muybridge of notational analysis.
Photo Credit
Detail of Lloyd Messersmith’s measuring device (Bradley Cook, Indiana University)
