Decorah readers interested in photography, design and cultural history can now find a new book by a Luther College professor close to home. Small Luxuries: Film Cameras, an illustrated hardcover by visual communication professor Aaron Lurth, is available at the Luther Book Shop and online.
Published Aug. 4 by the Quarto Group, the 128-page book was locally available as of Aug. 23, according to the report updated Aug. 24. Rather than serving as a guide for shoppers comparing camera features, it presents film cameras as objects connected to technology, industry, design and American culture.
A cultural history, not a buying guide
Lurth’s book examines how cameras became part of everyday life and why certain models gained broader cultural importance. It covers major world events, large manufacturers, notable cameras and influential figures in photography, while tracing how companies developed products and how industrial design affected the way images were recorded and understood.
The coffee-table-style volume combines photographs, illustrations, vintage advertisements, newspaper clippings and other visual material. Lurth sourced and photographed about one-third of the images himself. The cameras featured include models he owns or was able to access, including a 1909 Kodak No. 3A Folding Brownie, described in the report as one of the oldest cameras included in the book.
When camera history becomes human history
One section turns to Leica, the German camera company, during the rise of Nazi Germany. According to the report, Leica owner Ernst Leitz II helped approximately 300 Jewish people leave Germany during the 1930s.
Leitz assigned those people to offices in France, Great Britain, Hong Kong and the United States while presenting the arrangements as Leica employment. The effort later became known as the Leica Freedom Train.
Lurth uses that episode to demonstrate how camera history can also become political and human history. The book places manufacturing and photography alongside corporate decisions and individual choices made during a period of crisis.
Lurth’s connection to Luther College
Lurth earned a bachelor’s degree in art from Luther College in 2008 and a Master of Fine Arts degree in photography and graphic design from the University of Iowa in 2012. He later returned to Luther as a professor of art and visual communication and serves as director of the college’s visual communication program.
His photography has appeared in projects connected with National Geographic, ABC, NBC, MTV.com, Time, the Des Moines Register, General Electric, CNET.com, the Red Cross and The Iowa Review. His films have screened at more than 100 festivals worldwide and received several awards, including the Iowa Motion Picture Association’s Best Documentary film.
In 2022, two of Lurth’s photographs entered the permanent collection of the Figge Art Museum in Davenport. Small Luxuries: Film Cameras extends that visual storytelling background into a study of the cameras, companies and people that influenced photography. The book is available locally at the Luther Book Shop in Decorah and online.