Kaiser Permanente’s Caton Hill Medical Center: September, 2022

On September 19th, 2022, the Kaiser Permanente Caton Hill Medical Center opened, replacing the Woodbridge Medical Center with a new 245,000-square foot medical center in Prince William County.  Four days before the first day of service, Kaiser Permanente held a ribbon cutting ceremony with addresses from Kaiser Permanente directors and Prince William County leadership.

The new Kaiser Permanente hub includes 24/7 advanced urgent care, an outpatient surgical facility, a full featured radioimagery center, and 30 specialties including family medicine, pediatrics, obstetrics & gynecology, neurology, oncology, behavioral health, cardiology, pain management, ophthalmology, and optometry.  The complex is LEED Silver certified, and is expected to serve ~40,000 patients and ~320,000 visits each year.

I’m sharing some highlights from covering the event and new facility here.

After the ribbon cutting events, groups of guests were taken on guided tours and allowed the opportunity to explore the new medical campus.

Madonna and Rubin - Fall Portraits

You might remember Madonna and Rubin from their spectacular travel themed engagement at the Dulles Airport gate where they met, or more recently Donna’s graduation portraits from George Mason University (Go Patriots!).  This Fall they took a stroll with me through Huntley Meadows Park in Alexandria, Virginia to take in the Autumn colors at their peak and occasionally cuddle up (or get in a leaf fight after carrying one another).  The sun made for an unseasonably warm day, but it fit the feeling, because it’s clear just spending a few moments with Rubin and Donna that they both married their best friend.

As the sun set, and we were just a few short days from Halloween, Rubin got spoopy on the return hike.

It had been a relaxing day, and I’d once again lived up to Rubin’s famous quote about me: “I’m pretty sure David’s face just looks like a camera.”

Ilana and Chris: Married April 28th, 2022

In my blog post about Ilana and Chris’ engagement session, I explained my history with film; how I have never shot on it professionally, and only reached for it for fun, finding novelty in its charming imperfection, and how this appreciation of film for fun and interesting cars is what ultimately brought us all together.

For Chris and Ilana’s wedding, however, like their engagement session, I changed this history, if ever so slightly.  Just like Chris and Ilana love the artistry classic, quirky, and quick cars, they also appreciate share my appreciation of analog’s allure.  So while their big day wouldn’t be the first time I snapped Polaroids at a wedding, it would be the most film I’ve ever shot at any professional session, even if it was a few handfuls.

After getting prepped, and strategically keeping the wedding parties separate, Ilana had a first look with her family on the Anchor Inn’s dock immediately before the ceremony began.  In the refreshing breeze on the Patapsco River, Chris and Ilana took their turns going down the aisle, finally letting Chris choke up seeing Ilana in her dress; a tradition Chris was adamant to keep.

After the breaking the glass (mozal tov!), Ilana and Chris danced on a cloud to kick off their reception.  After dinner and toasts, they cut the cake to the tune of some zany TV theme songs that perfectly fit their silly personalities; King of the Hill, South Park, The Simpsons, and more.  Now it’s officially party time!

Winding down the evening, Chris and Ilana slow danced solo, just them and the music on the dance floor… and maybe a few excited guests who peeked inside through the portal window.  Under an arch of fiber optic sparklers, Ilana and Chris departed, but not before dipping for a kiss one more time, and one more Polaroid.

Natasha And Zach: Married April 8th, 2022

If you know Natasha and Zach, you know how in love and excited to tie the knot they have been since getting engaged in 2019.  Like so many couples in recent memory, their wedding plans became an exercise in hurry-up-and-wait for the World to regain some normalcy, but their patience was rewarded this April, joined by a gathering of friends and family able to converge upon the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts to join in celebrating their love surrounded by art from every continent.

The day began at one of Richmond’s historic rowhouses where the wedding party got ready and toasted with a special bottle of rum Natasha and Zach picked up in Cancún and were saving for a special occasion.  Next were first looks; the emotion on Natasha’s father’s face as she came down the stairs in her dress, and later on Zach’s face as he saw her walking down the aisle.

I don’t think I’ve ever met a couple so pumped to be married - immediately following their ceremony, Zach and Natasha led the wedding party outside for pictures, across the VMFA’s public gardens packed with hundreds of people picnicking in the beautiful Spring weather; Zach yelled at the top of his lungs pointing to Natasha, “THAT’S MY WIFE!!!” to the cheers of the entire lawn, some people coming up to congratulate and take pictures with the newlyweds.

After dinner, while everyone else was dancing and partying, the three of us stole away to go explore the museum - Natasha and Zach danced and joked among exhibits, with just their infectious laughter echoing the secluded halls.  As longtime Richmond residents, and lovers of the city’s thriving art scene, it was a fitting location to mark the occasion they’ve been looking forward to for years.

Ilana and Chris: Engaged

For as long as I’ve practiced photography, I’ve had an off-and-on relationship with film. As a child, digital cameras didn’t exist yet for the consumer market, so my first camera was a cheap Kodak C400 point-and-shoot that used the short-lived Kodak Advantix APS film format: a now-discontinued film format that was meant to modernize and simplify film photography for the entry-level consumer. The APS format, aside from its 1.6x crop factor limiting its resolution compared to 135 film, was quite progressive in its ability to store exposure and print metadata magnetically on the film, similar to cinematography formats, but was discontinued not long after its introduction as digital cameras became more prevalent.

In college I learned to develop, process, and print film with traditional darkroom practices, which I found relaxing, but only for fun, as I’d been shooting digitally for years at that point. Since then, I only shoot film for fun, embracing its imperfection as beauty, and its pastel color palette influencing my digital retouching style to some extent. Flash forward to today, and while I’d always been fascinated by the Polaroid format, I’d never even shot a single Polaroid until I treated myself to a Polaroid instant camera for my birthday in 2020. I’ve found it to be an even more enjoyable film format than traditional 35mm film, because who doesn’t love instant gratification in the Instagram age - Instagram’s icon is even based off the design of a Polaroid camera.

The Polaroid format is just fun; not only do you have results “instantly” (it takes about 10min for the image to develop), but there’s a delight in being able to give people prints on-the-spot; oftentimes, in the Instagram age, even though a digital image may be more “perfect,” it’s the imperfect, moment captured physically that we remember the most.

At the start of one of my long-distance runs, I found a rare spot in the US: A Daihatsu Rocky with the 5 speed manual in Marine Blue, a color that was only offered in 1992. Mostly sold in other countries, Daihatsu only sold vehicles in the US from 1987 to 1992, only selling 3 models: The Charade, Rocky, and their possibly most known vehicle in the US among enthusiasts, the Hijet cabover microvan / kei truck. The Rocky was powered by the same 94HP I4 engine that powered the Charade, and was offered with a 5 speed manual or 4 speed automatic transmission providing power to all four wheels. In 1992 ten color options were offered, and the choice of a removable soft top, or hard top with removable panels was offered. Being the car and photo geek I am, I took a Polaroid of it and left it as a gift to the owner; anyone who owns this has to be an interesting car geek.

This is how I met Chris and Ilana… and I was right: they’re even bigger car geeks than I am! A few months after I took this photo, they found me and as it turned out were recently engaged and looking for a photographer to capture their engagement and wedding. We met to go over details, but ended up talking for hours about cars we’ve owned, driven, and wrenched on. Cars aren’t just a hobby for Chris; he rebuilds classic cars to their original condition with frame-off restorations by day, and builds vehicles in his own collection with Ilana for racing, cruising, and showing on their off time. Chris and Ilana even have a spunky pupper named Maverick!

This Fall, we’d planned to shoot an engagement session including their beloved Daihatsu Rocky, even discussing going off-roading in it to get pictures with it in its natural habitat. Unfortunately, being the uncommon bird it is in North America, its natural habitat has instead been more in the shop, as parts are hard to come by for an older and barely sold truck in the US - its estimated that only three are still in existence on the East Coast, with Chris and Ilana’s being the only one that still runs and drives. The day of our shoot, the Rocky’s leaky radiator gave out, sadly sidelining it out of the photoshoot, but we still made the best of the day hiking around the Virginia shoreline at sunset.