City Nurse: COVID-19 captures the unprecedented intersection of my two professions as a photographer and a critical care nurse. In April 2020, my worlds merged when I photographed the realities inside the Intensive Care Unit at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City—the very hospital where I work. On assignment for The New Yorker, I documented one nurse over two 13-hour shifts at what would later be recognized as the peak of the pandemic’s first wave in the United States. 

Often, photographers are criticized for documenting a population to which they do not belong. However, I deeply understand the dangerous, difficult work of nursing COVID- 19 patients because I was doing it. My nursing directly informs my work as a photographer; my subjects' concerns were my concerns. This insider perspective allowed me to responsibly capture the intense physical trauma endured by patients alongside the profound sensitivity and tenderness the staff gave them under extreme stress. Rather than replicating the chaotic, over-dramatized emergencies popular in television hospital dramas, these images quietly express the gravity and authentic emotional landscape of the unit. 

To honor the historical significance of the pandemic, I printed the images as photogravures. This 1870s printmaking technique allows me to render deep shadow tones and soften the harsh, fluorescent hospital lighting, translating urgent documentary snapshots into enduring, tactile artifacts. Mirroring its historical value to the city, the Museum of the City of New York has recently acquired the complete photogravure portfolio for its permanent collection.