A new book from Luther College professor Aaron Lurth asks readers to look at film cameras as more than outdated technology. Small Luxuries: Film Cameras connects camera design, manufacturing and photography with American culture, major historical events and the people whose lives were changed by the industry.
Lurth, a visual communication professor and director of Luther’s visual communication program, published the 128-page hardcover Aug. 4 through the Quarto Group, according to Luther College News. The book is available to Decorah residents through the Luther Book Shop or online.
A visual history, not a buying guide
The book includes an introduction to basic camera mechanics, but its primary focus is historical and cultural rather than technical. Lurth examines major manufacturers, notable models and influential figures instead of offering detailed equipment specifications or shopping advice.
Designed in a coffee-table style, the book brings together photographs, illustrations, vintage advertisements, newspaper clippings and other visual materials. Roughly one-third of the images were sourced and photographed by Lurth with cameras he owns or was able to access.
One of the oldest cameras he photographed was a 1909 Kodak No. 3A Folding Brownie. His firsthand photography, combined with research, gives readers interested in photography, graphic design and cultural history a closer look at how familiar camera companies developed and why their products became important.
When camera history intersects with world events
One of the book’s central stories involves Leica, the German camera company. During the 1930s, Leica owner Ernst Leitz II helped approximately 300 Jewish people leave Nazi Germany by assigning them to offices in France, Great Britain, Hong Kong and the United States under the appearance of Leica employment.
The effort later became known as the Leica Freedom Train. Lurth uses the episode to demonstrate how the history of a camera company can intersect with world events and the lives of people affected by them, not simply with technological innovation or industrial design.
Lurth’s background in visual storytelling
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.
His photography has appeared in projects associated 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. With Small Luxuries: Film Cameras, the Luther professor extends that visual storytelling work into a history of the cameras, companies and people that helped shape how the world records and understands images.