When Richard and Amy Lynn returned last summer from their latest African adventure we received a special email of thanks in our inbox. It began with a simple “We are back” and “Job well done” going on to recount their “Single greatest wildlife experience of all time”. They had a front-row Land Rover seat when the sad events recounting the last moments of Lady Ravenscourt were shed at Singita Game Reserves in South Africa. This resident alpha female leopard, one of Africa’s great legends and a constant subject for enthralled rangers and travelers in their magnificent records and photographs brought home, met her fateful maternal stand off against a dominant male on that wintery encounter. The email followed through with photos and a tale of sympathy torn from a very personal account. A morning that started with the mother and cub frolicking in the sunlight to the sudden entry of a third leopard on the scene. In their words, “Wow and horrific at the same time”. We pasted a leaf from their journal into our blog and received an outpour of empathy from travelers who had spent time with this beloved leopard and her photogenic posing to the delight of safari guests the world over. Their tale was witnessed as though in person by each traveler dropping in with Guided Safaris that afternoon.
Documenting journeys from the ’80s to today’s frantic air travel world, the Lynns meet and relay their odds and familiars with a salt-of-the-earth charm. The photography in The Sarcastic Lens is realistic and the beautiful subjects wow you to reach for your camera and set off to far-off lands. The animal encounters come packed with characterful anecdotes. It is an enjoyable and purely inspirational read, one that you probably will not do all at once. Like spinning a globe and shifting a trail down the table of continents, flip over to destinations that appeal on that particular day or mood, the book spread open before you, as it is before me now, finding yourself joining in conversations and chuckles that pick up from one chapter and region to the next. An inspiring companion to count down the days with, till you venture out on your own far-flung adventure.