Lion cubs in just about any context are pretty adorable.  After all, they’re kinda like giant kittens and who doesn’t like kittens?  Well.  A few lost, wayward souls seem to. Luckily for lion cubs, even most of the folks who don’t like kittens seem to love lion cubs.  That childish/kittenish charm was part of what made the moment behind this photo so magical.  We came upon a group of five cubs ranging from four to six months old during our Safari in South Luangwa while in Zambia with Shenton Safaris.  As we approached they rolled over and looked at us lazily.  They apparently decided we weren’t a threat and looked too chewy to try nibbling on.  For the next 20 minutes they allowed us to sit a few feet away form them firing off a series of amazing photos.  A few of the cubs were feeling lazy, but several had a performer’s personality and clowned a bit for the camera – rolling over, staring at us, and posing in profile.  This shot is of one of the more active characters in the group!

The chance to see these amazing creatures completely free and in the wild was a wonderful experience and one that left us all with goosebumps.   It’s amazing how different the overall moment is from those spent viewing lion cubs in a zoo or watching cubs which have been domesticated.  There’s the natural vibrancy that comes from their hard lives and the lifestyle they live that is unlike anything you can see anywhere else!  It’s also why I encourage you all to add spending time near wild lion cubs to your bucket lists!

Would you like to see previous Friday Photos? View past travel pictures here. This photo was taken on a Canon T3i (600D) Camera using a Canon IS 55-250mm lens.

Product Review

A few weeks ago the folks at InspireMyCase reached out to me with an offer to try one of their custom phone cases.  Curiosity piqued but not entirely convinced I agreed to give it a try. The part that really caught my interest was the ability to upload one of my photos, to slap some text onto it, and then to turn that into a high quality case for my iPhone 4S.  Given how dreadfully unattractive or boring most iPhone cases are this seemed like an enticing service and an easy way to advertise VirtualWayfarer while out and about.

I logged into their custom web-panel and then set to the task of trying to decide what image I wanted to use.  Which, to be honest, was the most difficult part of the entire process.  The interface worked smoothly and made customizing the image easy.  It also made it simple to see what my final design would look like.  My only complaint was that the text customization options were somewhat limited. So, while I had initially hoped to do “INSPIRE CURIOSITY” and then to add “VirtualWayfarer” underneath, the interface wouldn’t let me enter an independent second line.  Given how small an iPhone case is and that you want your font to be pretty large, this makes sense.  I also could have just manually added the text onto the image itself if it had bothered me.  In the end simplicity won out, and I ended up finishing and ordering my case which arrived about a week later.

I decided to add this product review to this particular post because the Lion Cub photo above is the one I used for my case image.  So far I’m really happy with it.  The plastic is thicker than I expected and very sturdy. The color, gloss, and print quality are all fantastic and also better than I expected.  The image is sharp, the text is clean and sharp, and over-all the case beat my expectations.  I’ve also received a lot of nice comments about the shot and the case since I started using it.

The cases aren’t cheap, but then again for a custom printed item like this they’re really not that expensive either.  As an added perk 20% of the purchase goes to the non-profit AngelMule.

So, if a custom iPhone case seems appealing, consider checking out the folks over at InspireMyCase.