point and shoot

I took an old point-and-shoot digital camera to New York Fashion Week because, haven’t you heard?

Using cheap point-and-shoot cameras — they were unobtrusive and produced grainy shots that, to her, represented the messiness of life — Ms. van Manen captured intimate images of daily life in China, post-Soviet Russia and coal miners in Kentucky.

Bertien van Manen, a Dutch photographer who used point-and-shoot cameras to capture intimate images of daily life in China’s big cities and remote villages, the dismal apartments and alleyways of post-Soviet Russia and coal miners in Kentucky, died on May 26 in Amsterdam.

Like the allure of vinyl records, classic video games and even the early internet, the fascination with older photography standards like point-and-shoot cameras or 35-millimeter film persists — even in people too young to remember when that gear was cutting edge.

They’re set in beige basements and in cluttered dorm rooms, taken with the trusty family point-and-shoot or a handy smartphone.