Paul Elter is a Canadian artist in paint, sculpture and photography. He is also a writer.

His book, Silver Tongued, brings the visual together with the written, and adds a bit of the documentarian, the curator and the historical practitioner to his resume as well. The photographic portraits assembled here are the opposite of snapshots. Mr. Elter’s project involves the use of an 1850s camera, whose collodion “wetplate” method of exposure involves applying a variety of chemicals to a glass plate, including the silver nitrate that gives the volume half its name, and patiently waiting for the right moment to begin an exposure that can last for many minutes.

As he developed his skills in using a technology reconstructed from 150-year-old recipes, Mr. Elter came to realize that this process of taking a picture—he prefers to call it “making”—had an effect on the perception of time. The apparently single moment captured on the plate took an hour or more, all told. And his subjects would fall into telling stories while they waited. This is the second half of the volume’s title.

These elements, light, chemistry and narrative, became a project when Mr. Elter took up a residency at the Al Purdy A-frame in Ameliasburgh in 2023. He put out a call to anyone interested in sharing a story in exchange for a collodion portrait.

The final result compiles hundreds of images and 56 written entries. There are poems, and short fictions, but many of the stories told are memories or coincidences of past and present, like Trevor Collier’s account of unknowingly purchasing the house originally owned by his ancestor Peter Collier 200 years before, or Andy Wunsch, the adult child of Hungarian refugees, who accidentally encountered a man who had accompanied his parents on their flight in 1956.

The portraits are both contemporary—their subjects are wearing 21st-century clothing—and vintage, as the light in these black and white images is based on the exposure techniques of the 1850s, and the final print is inverted in a mirror image. The stillness required of the sitters makes their poses, not so much formal as careful: many a standing figure has something fixed to lean on; a sitter is arranged just so as to prevent a shift in a hand or foot. But their words flow and change, offering a dynamic beginning, middle and end.

This is a book about humanity, its individuals and its generations. Paul Elter’s collection both preserves and alters the long reach of memory that we at once inherit and pass along — with our own prints upon it.

Silver Tongued is available by direct purchase from www.elter.ca or at Books and Co. Picton. For additional images see: https://www.elter.ca/index#/silver-tongued/