For anyone applying various vintage or classic film filters to their modern photos, the Featured Image is what you’re trying to achieve. This shot is absolutely authentic. It’s the real deal. You’re looking at my uncle’s dune buggy, as captured by my father in summer 1974, or thereabouts. The vehicle, built around a Volkswagen Beetle chassis, never touched sand, by the way, just the rocky ground of the Allagash wilderness.
My cousin Dan and I used to ride on the back of the buggy, on the (yellow) fiberglass body, holding onto the bar for support. Given how rough were the makeshift roads that lumberjacks had made decades earlier, it’s amazing neither of us fell off.
I have absolutely no idea who the man is standing in front of the cabin, which Uncle Glenn rented from one of the Maine lumbering companies for $100 a year. There was no running water, although a cool water spring was about a quarter-mile walk away. There was an outhouse, of course—or you could go in the woods. But be mindful of poison ivy! There are worse places on your body to have an outbreak.
Photo Credit: Joseph Wilcox