Theodore Frelinghuysen, president of Rutgers, 1850-1862. n the left, Frelinghuysen in the idealized portraiture of the mid-nineteenth century and on the right Frelinghuysen in an early wet-plate photograph. The stern expression is not solely due to the exposure time, for wet-plate photography had reduced the exposures to a few seconds. Early photographs were daunting because of their tendency to show unalterable human reality. Later, retouching and other aspects of portrait photographer's art made photos as stylized as paintings.