The most fun photos are the ones that just ... happened.
Posed vintage photographs are invaluable, certainly.
Who doesn't treasure the formal wedding photos that show the bride, groom and attendants donning styles of the times. Similarly, the prom picture taken by a professional photographer captures a memorable moment in one's timeline.
In truth, the prom picture also probably has a lot of people asking themselves, "What possessed me to wear that?".
MORE: Vintage photos around New Jersey
Families take holiday photos each year that allow friends to see how children have grown. Graduation photos are lovingly mounted on mantles and walls by parents and grandparents.
Yet I think a lot of people would agree with me that the most fun photos are the ones that just ... happened.
In my family, simply saying the words "knobby knees" makes everyone think of the same photo -- this one. That's me on the left. I'm talking about pictures that were taken with cameras that did not allow the photographer to see what the shot would look like until the film was developed - you know, the pre-Polaroid, pre-digital days (we've all left rolls of undeveloped film in drawers for longer than we'd like to admit, haven't we?).
But it was this same inability to know what the picture looked like that resulted in some of the best candid photos. Like the ones in this gallery, all from pre-digital days, candid photos can provide a chuckle or simply a natural look into a time and place from days gone by.
Here's a gallery of such vintage candid photos from New Jersey. Enable captions to read about them, and if you'd like more, click here and here to see previous candid galleries.
Greg Hatala may be reached at ghatala@starledger.com. Follow him on Twitter @GregHatala. Find Greg Hatala on Facebook.