I'd say that "riding a camel in the middle of Dubai" is truly one of the weirder things I have done. I actually was so busy trying to hang on, I could barely take pictures and eventually, thought I was going to be seasick.

Riding a camel is nothing like riding a horse. Their long, bendy legs and ginormous, strange feet make for a really uncomfortable and wobbly ride. I've heard that while they're running, their pace evens out and it's a nice smooth ride. It's not one I was willing to try out.

While in Dubai I got to do quite a few interesting things, namely having a three hour tea in the Burj al Arab (the hotel that looks like a giant sailboat) and becoming addicted to hummus.

The most interesting part, though, was the Falcon Hospital near Abu Dhabi. Falcons are an integral part of the area's history, and though they are no longer used as the hunters they once were, they are still kept by families and are revered almost as family members. So, just like a specialized veterinarian, there is a falcon hospital in the UAE.

Falcons come to the hospital for all sorts of different things, and one is the rather odd concept of replacing a feather. A feather? Yeah- a feather. If a wing feather is broken, they're replaced. The team puts the bird under anesthesia, snips off the offending feather, and glues a new one on. Within ten minutes, the bird is happily flapping around again.

The bird above, I nicknamed "Mork," for the obvious reason that he/she looks like an alien.

All the falcons wore these little leather helmets to blind them. They could see and probably smell each other, but just like horse blinders, what they couldn't see, they ignored. Falcons would attack each other if they could, and of course that's not what you would want to happen. Their helmets were removed when they were fed one at a time- a ritual involving wearing a leather glove and holding a piece of raw quail in it for the bird to crunch and rip its beak through. It was pretty disgusting, if you ask me!

I did get to hold one (not while it was eating!!!) and the vet instructed me to bob my (gloved) hand up and down, and this magnificent bird flapped it wings for me. The wind it created simply blew me away, in more ways than one.

I don't particularly like parrots or big birds (I like ducks, though, but run screaming from geese) and these falcons were nothing like the big scary staring macaws I've seen. The falcon truly was a majestic bird, and I can understand why they have their own passports and get their own plane seat on Emirates airlines.

Well.... mostly understand.

Sunny, beautiful weather, San Diego sky for an outdoor wedding, flowers, cakes, nervous bride, Starbucks run at five am, way too many guests... wind.... clouds.... three video cameras.... main photog defunct.... erm.....

Okay, so it was the biggest thing in the AV side I can think of. The wedding of Stephen and Shaela Opgenorth had a full Audio Visual setup including three video cameras plugged into a mixer, and two photographers, one of which was me.

Except, actually, that the other photographer got sick and then it was only me.

So the day started off with me bounding off to Starbucks to get everyone coffee. Actually, that gave me one of my very favorite photos, since when I was at the Starbucks I had told the girl behind the counter which one of the slushy-coffee-whatsists was for the bride, and she labeled it that way:

I thought it was cute. And... it made the bride laugh, which was a bonus, since the bride was extremely nervous as all brides tend to be.

So this lovely wedding of two fantastic people was taking place on a balmy San Diego day, and it was outside in a fantastic backyard that was full of flowers and grass and WIND.

I had two problems.

One, I was the only photographer. This is not normally a problem, and I'll bound around from front to back and crouch my little butt (ok I'm really tall) behind the pastor and hope no one notices. But this backyard was enormous, and there were about thirty rows of chairs!

That entailed me taking off in a dead run right after the ceremony so I could be at the OTHER end of the pathway in order to take pictures of them as they walked off as a newly married couple.

The other problem was the video cameras. This was the first time I'd encountered three of them at once- one was at the back of the row, and two were in the front. Why was this a problem? Because I was trying not to get in the way!

I crouched and crab walked a lot that day.

The day started off, as I said, at Starbucks. Then I wandered around the house, taking pictures as the Bride was getting dressed (those pretty ones where the mothers are helping adjust her veil and helping her put on her shoes), and photographing the Groom as he shined his shoes and tried not to look quite as pale as he was feeling.

Once the wedding started, I was up under the gazebo, crouched under a video camera, and poking my zoom lens through the vines and trying to look inconspicuous. I had two cameras slung around my neck, and trust me, that's heavy.

Being right underneath the pastor's armpit was useful! I got some fantastic photos of the Bride and Groom as they said their vows and kissed. It's very difficult as a photographer to not get emotional at how beautiful weddings can be!

After the ceremony, I took off running, as I mentioned before, and luckily I'm not going to say something like "I fell over a cable" or anything like that. Nope, I made it to the other end just fine, and after the receiving line, I started lining everyone up for those posed shots everyone needs, like the "Grandmother, mother, daughter" shot, or the "Groomsmen giving the new Groom a hard time" shot.

However, my favorite photos always come from when I'm snapping away BEFORE they start posing. I was lining up the Mother-of-the-Bride in her picture, and they were talking and laughing before the shot:

At the end of the day, when all the rice was thrown and the Newlyweds had driven off in their car, I transferred all seven hundred plus photos onto a CD and put them aside for them.

I'd say my biggest nerve wracking moment was wondering what they were going to think... since Stephen is himself a professional photographer as well!

He must have liked them- he used one of my photos as their Christmas card... yay! All those leg cramps I got the next day from crab walking underneath video cameras was worth it :)

Step One: Insert cats.

Step Two: Arrange flowers.

Step Three: Adjust lights.

Step Four: Snap away merrily.

Well, that was the plan, anyway.

There is nothing quite like stuffing two cats in a small lightbox, poking them with long stemmed red roses, and pointing bright lights at them in an attempt to make a greeting card.

They climb on each other, climb out of the box, bite the roses, and pull the background down.

These two black and white cats, Hal and Mo, were actually quite cooperative. The lightbox was actually a small 2’x2’ cube, and I propped it on a table on the far side of the room because I was going to use my zoom lens on them.

The "zoom in!!" idea was necessary due to the odd lightbox- it had this strange small opening. If I wasn't stepping back all the way, it wouldn't let me see all the way in without showing the doorway. Not such a great design for a lightbox, that's for sure!

Since cats are normally inquisitive, it wasn’t hard to get them to smell the roses and sniff them appreciatively. At one point, Hal took a great big bite of the rose that was being shoved near his nose. I cracked up.

Cats always look like they're smiling when they fold their ears back half-way, close their eyes, and carefully poke their little pink noses into things.

Hal died two months after this shoot, and this photo was used in his memory. He was a beautiful tuxedo cat, with a deep Siamese sounding meow.

The cats put up with this odd treatment for about twenty minutes. I ended up taking about a hundred shots of them in that time, and I wasn't doing that fancy multishot thing, either. Point click, point click- voila! Kitties with roses!

Along the way, Mo decided to take a nap. This, actually, is one of my favorite pictures I have ever taken of a cat- and I’ve taken lots of pictures of cats!

None of the photos actually ended up being used as a greeting card, but apparently they did end up being quite a few people’s wallpaper.