A commercial photographer, Platt Babbitt made photographs for tourists at Niagara Falls. He established his business as early as 1853 and continued into the 1870s. Babbitt set up his equipment on the American side of the Falls, in an open pavilion, which served the dual purpose of announcing his business and sheltering his camera. From this viewpoint he could photograph visitors admiring the Horseshoe Falls. By about the end of the 1850s Babbitt had exchanged his daguerreotype equipment for the less costly wet plate collodion process.