Purpose: The paper discusses the camerawork within a historic video case study as a meaningful practice of visualization of classrooms and also as an aspect worth consideration in current contexts of video-based classroom research and teacher education. Design/methodology/approach: The case study combines elements of video hermeneutics and a visual sociology of knowledge to reconstruct "the visual" within historic classroom videos. It discusses these reconstructions based on the theoretical framework of video ethnography as an alternative method of classroom research focused on specific actions of showing within the historical context. Findings: The analysis and interpretation underpin the assumption of relations between camerawork and intentions for the use of the videos and enables insights into practices of documentation, implicit images of teaching practices, and classroom interaction as a part of the history of social science education.