Imagine the city as a living body. In that body, the roads would be its blood vessels. Traversing those roads are us humans, wandering through the tangle of highways and roads like like blood cells pumping through a maze of arteries and capillaries. Among them — about 1 in 300 — are us white coat-clad doctors, like those 1 in 800 white blood cells wandering among the red blood cells. Like those WBCs patrolling and protecting the body, doctors are the city’s healers.
For three weeks, Sing For Hope has scattered 60 pianos painted by local artists all around the five boroughs of New York City. After today, they will be transported to their final homes: NYC public schools.
I don’t know why I decided to challenge myself to visit as many of them as possible — especially during a pretty busy stretch in med school — but that’s what I did! Continue reading Finding the SFH Pianos→
It’s dark. The air is hot and heavy with moisture. The nine of us are pressed against each other in that small space in silence, resigned to sharing the torpid air conditioning. All of us sleepily wish we weren’t trapped there at such a bizarre time of day.
Yes, it’s the 5:30 am shuttle that takes medical students from Cornell to the NYP Queens hospital a 10-mile drive away. Just starting my surgery clerkship, I’ve only taken it on three mornings, but it really strikes me as a… surreal kind of commute. Continue reading 5:30 am→
Okay, this is ironic and kind of sad. After having lived in NYC for one year as a photo enthusiast and having put together that “Guide to NYC” this summer, I had still only visited two museums on Manhattan: the Met and the Museum of Math. My friends helped remedy that by letting me tag along for a flurry of museum outings. I now present you: Peter’s definitive non-artistic guide to museums he visited last month!
Last week, my friends who lead Weill Cornell’s Arts Club asked me to lead a photography expedition to Central Park. Ostensibly, I was coaching my classmates, offering tips about composition, portraiture, and camera technique, but really…? I was too busy taking pictures of this man. Continue reading Central Park Photoshoot→
Last Thursday, I ditched a class to go shoot an actual earnest snowstorm in Central Park as it was happening (rf: see the previous post about the blizzard that didn’t happen). Because of the dense cloud cover, the thick snow in the air, and rapid accumulation on a cold day with heavy snowfall, the park looked like a real outdoor environment. I could almost forget I was smack dab in the middle of an enormous urban metropolis. Continue reading Four Days of Thawing→
There was talk that the blizzard that was going to hit New York City on Tuesday, January 27th, 2015, was going to be historic. Forecasts were predicting anywhere from 24-36 inches of snow overnight. Social media was going nuts. Governor Cuomo haphazardly implemented a travel ban, closing all roads and shutting down the entire MTA. The entire thing.
(But as we all know now, Juno blew by and spared NYC this time. Still, I’m just going to talk about my photographic adventures, okay? Okay.)
If there was one thing for me to continue from last year (i.e. this blog’s work), it had to be nature photography. Obviously, living in New York City offers many perks, but easy access to nature is not one of them. Central Park is my one respite, a 0.8 mile run up 7 avenues from campus, so I started going pretty darn often. Continue reading Phases of Central Park→
