Today, smart phones make it easy, expected, in fact, to take a picture of everything and anything.
I love photographs, and I especially love poring through old photographs.
I just wish more of them were my own.
Picture-taking is such a common part of our lives today that it hardly requires a second thought. Camera phones make it so easy to record everything that's going on to share with others.
You look away for just a second ... and it's pie-time for the dog. But it wasn't so easy in the 1960s and 1970s when I was growing up. Cameras had limited shots on their film rolls, and there was no way of knowing if the picture had come out until it was developed. Film cost money, and so did developing. Polaroid instant cameras were relatively expensive as was the film, and kind of bulky to carry around.
I think a lot of this added up to getting only "perfect shots" and "special events."
Yet for all the pretty bulky eight-track tapes I kept in my car, it never occurred to me to keep a little Instamatic camera and fire off a few shots every now and again of hanging out with friends.
Today, smart phones equipped with cameras and huge memory make it easy, expected, in fact, to take a picture of everything and anything. Candid photos, therefore, are shot all of the time these days.
MORE: Vintage photos around New Jersey
So, perhaps candid photos taken in "the old days" are all the more valuable. I truly wish I had more than just mental memories of classic moments that could have been recorded on film, but weren't.
Here's a gallery of pictures taken by people who did bring along their cameras to capture vintage slices of life in New Jersey. Make sure captions are enabled to know all there is to know about these classic snapshots.
Can't get enough? Here's a link to our last candid gallery.
Greg Hatala may be reached at ghatala@starledger.com. Follow him on Twitter @GregHatala. Find The Star-Ledger on Facebook.