A new book by Luther College professor Aaron Lurth invites readers to see film cameras as more than mechanical tools. Small Luxuries: Film Cameras examines how camera design, technological change, politics and personal experience helped turn photographic equipment into cultural objects.
The 128-page illustrated hardcover was published Aug. 4 through the Quarto Group, according to the supplied report. It is available through the Luther Book Shop and online.
A cultural history of cameras
Lurth, a visual communication professor and director of Luther’s visual communication program, wrote the book for readers interested in photography, graphic design and cultural history. It is not an equipment-shopping guide or a catalogue of product specifications. Instead, the book explores the connections between camera design, American culture, technological development and major events around the world.
The book discusses major manufacturers, notable models and influential people to show how photographic products gained meaning beyond their practical use. Its coffee-table format combines photographs, illustrations, vintage advertisements, newspaper clippings and other visual materials.
About one-third of the images were sourced and photographed by Lurth. The cameras used for his photography included models he owns or was able to access, including a 1909 Kodak No. 3A Folding Brownie, one of the oldest cameras featured in the book.
Alongside the visual material, Small Luxuries traces the development of camera companies and considers both how cameras operated and why particular models mattered. That approach extends the book’s focus beyond equipment into industrial design and the history of visual culture.
The Leica Freedom Train
One of the book’s central stories concerns Leica, the German camera company. During the 1930s, Leica owner Ernst Leitz II helped approximately 300 Jewish people escape 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 show how camera history can encompass political events and the experiences of people affected by them, as well as innovation, manufacturing and design.
Lurth’s visual storytelling background
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 brings that visual storytelling background to a history of the cameras, companies and people that helped shape how the world records and understands images.