X-Ray – The Art

Aren't we all transparent?

text Bryan Whitney

When dealing with the topic »SCANNED« you can't get around reading about »X-Ray photographers«. They observe objects, plants and even people from a different perspective, using x-rays to create extraordinary and unusual images.

Bryan Whitney (New York) is one of those photographers. His experimental pictures have been featured in countless magazines. Whitney takes x-ray photos and uploads them to his site x-rayphotography.com . For sisterMAG he decided to go on a journey through time.

Röntgen X-ray from his wife's hand

Another hand done by Röntgen

It all began in 1895 when things unexpectedly started glowing in the dark.

As Physicist Wilhelm Röntgen researched the effects of an electrical charge passing through a vacuum tube he noticed that material coated with barium platinocyanide began to glow when placed near the covered tube. Röntgen correctly guessed that invisible rays (which he called »X-rays,« after the algebraic unknown »X«) were causing the luminescent reaction. Two months later, he made the first X-ray image of his wife Anna’s hand, revealing a golden ring on her skeletal hand. Röntgen was awarded a Nobel prize for this discovery.

Since then, X-rays have become an important part of medical science for their ability to reveal internal structures. Marie Curie, one of the first scientists to research radioactivity (and for whom the eponymous unit for radioactivity, the »Curie,« was named), advanced the World War I war effort by setting up mobile diagnostic X-ray units for the French troops, helping save wounded soldiers’ lives. She was awarded a Nobel prize in Physics (the first Nobel prize awarded to a woman) and then was awarded a second for Chemistry, becoming at the time the only person to have received two Nobel prizes. Decades of over-exposure to radioactive materials eventually led to her death in 1934. To this day, her scientific papers from the 1890s are kept in lead-lined boxes - even her cookbook from that time is radioactive!

Marie Curie

Beyond their forensic and medical use X-rays have also been used artistically. The technique is similar to the photogram where objects are simply placed on a sheet of photo paper in a darkroom and exposed to a beam of light, creating a shadow image or tones depending on how transparent to light the object is. In fact this is exactly how the very first photographic images from the 1830’s were made. An X-ray image is created in the same way: without a lens or a camera - except the beam of light shining on the object is an X-ray beam and it penetrates directly through the object onto a sensitive film or digital plate, forming a life-sized image.

High Heel with Foot from Bryan Whitney

Marie & Pierre Curie at work

A.A.C. Swinton: Fish

Just months after Röntgen published his findings, many scientists were experimenting with the technique. A.A.C. Swinton, an English amateur scientist, made numerous X-ray images of hands, fish and other objects.

An early and notable explorer of X-ray imaging in the 1930s was the Los Angeles radiologist Dain L. Tasker. Tasker made beautiful black and white images of flowers that revealed the delicate and beautiful structure of plants. One of his most famous X-ray images, of the classic photogenic Calla Lily, was printed from its X-ray negative by the master photographer Ansel Adams.

Albert Richards, a retired dental X-ray professor from the University of Michigan, produced X-ray floral work starting in the ‘60s, and published a book with 100 floral X-rays called »The Secret Garden.« This would be a great find at a used bookstore.

Self-portrait, radiograph, circa 1930s. In this contact print created from X-ray film, you can see the holes created by the film holder. (Dr. Dain L. Tasker)

Canterbury Bells, radiograph by Dr. D. L. Tasker

Bryan Whitney – Nasturtium X-ray

Bryan Whitney – Two Lilies X-ray

Bryan Whitney – Nautilus X-ray

Bryan Whitney – Chrysanthemum X-ray

Benedetta Bonichi: VENERE STUDIO Nr. 2, 2005

Bonichi: IL LAGO DEI CIGNI, 2005

Benedetta Bonichi: LA COLLANA DI PERLE … 2002

Italian artist Benedetta Bonichi, who works in many mediums, is a contemporary artist using X-rays. She has created fantastic operatic and painterly scenes, mythological creatures, and X-ray still life images. Her image of an octopuswoman is an elegant fantasy made »real« by the X-ray process, which leads us to think it could be scientifically accurate.

An extraordinary use - or reuse as it were - of X-rays occurred in the 1950s in Russia and Hungary. Before the days of the tape deck, to copy a vinyl record, one would »cut« a copy of a record using a duplicating machine. However, vinyl was scarce and it was discovered that discarded X-ray film could be used to create the recordings. Imagine how cool it would look spinning your X-ray records!

Bryan Whitney: Tulips

Bryan Whitney: Noorpur Portrait

More provocatively, Wim Delvoye’s work is pure »Goth,« using the X-ray process to create scary, explicit and macabre sexual images. His »Kiss« and »Lick« are relatively tame examples of his work.

As a photographer I have experimented with X-rays for the past 15 years creating images of flowers, plants, shells and many other objects. These images have appeared in magazines such as Italian Vogue, Martha Stewart Living, the Suddeutche Zeitung and have been exhibited internationally. I have recently made X-ray animations, 3-D X-rays, and combined X-rays with photographs. In 2016, the US Postal Service will be making a series of stamps from my X-ray floral images.