I don’t remember the first time I held a camera.
But I remember the first time I looked at a photo and thought, “Oh. This is how I keep this forever.”
Photography, for me, is half art, half panic. Art, because I’m always chasing light—on my friend’s face when they laugh, on my grandmother’s hands as she makes chai. Panic, because some part of me is scared that life will move on and I’ll forget exactly how this moment felt.
In med school, that feeling gets deeper.
A group photo after a brutal posting. A sleepy selfie in scrubs at 5 a.m. The first time your name quietly appears on a hospital ID. None of these will make it to a textbook, but they’re the proof of everything medicine doesn’t always show: the exhaustion, the inside jokes, the tiny victories no one claps for.
Later, when shifts, cities, and even people change, I scroll back and travel. I see the faces I studied with, the ward where I first felt useful, the smile of a patient who simply said “thank you” and meant it.
That’s why I love photography.
It’s my way of telling the world, and my future self:
We were here.
We cared.
This mattered.
Do you like taking pictures of moments and looking back at it ? Share your experience
MBH/PS