A Long Island photographer used his camera as a creative way to say thanks to the health care workers on the front lines during the height of the pandemic.

Lee Weissman, a Northwell Health photographer, made it his mission to document the battle waged by front-line workers.

"I think they went above and beyond to give everybody the best care they could," says Weissman.

Weissman shot photos for 160 days and captured the response to the crisis in every department of the Island's largest health care system.

"We had a lot of people doing jobs that weren't their normal jobs that went out of their way to do jobs," says Weissman.

In the pictures, you see the marks from their masks, the fight in their eyes and the hope in their hearts as they fought to save lives.

It was a lot of emotions and I think we felt scared and nervous," says Kelly Gorman, a Northwell Health Flight Nurse. "But at the same time, we realized that this was our job and our role to take care of patients."

Weissman's photos inspired Northwell Health to turn those hardships into a larger-than-life mural honoring staff for their tireless sacrifice over the last two years of the pandemic.

Northwell's creative services team had more than 35,000 photos to select from. In the end, 900 photos were chosen to make up the mosaic.