When we learned that the world’s oldest surviving camera-made photograph, “View from the Window at Le Gras,” was taken in France around the same year as the founding of Lafayette, we were inspired to show campus, as we know it today, through an antique lens.

Wet-plate photography, popularized in the mid-19th century, is a multistep process that involves glass plates, chemical baths, long exposures, cooperative lighting, and access to a portable darkroom. It also requires patient subjects, as each portrait takes 15 minutes to process.

This series of scenes took one year to complete by photographer Rick Smith. He nearly pauses time, at least for a little while, to permanently preserve our dear Lafayette.