-
Snail shells X-ray fusion photos
A friend handed me out some snail shells that he had in mind for a long time to lend me. Eventually, he found 5 beautiful shells when cleaning up the basement.
The effect of the images depends strongly on the post-processing. Some of the results may not be combined in one presentation.
Here I show three images of them as dark jewels with an intrinsic undefinable light. Maybe, we are thousand miles below sea level.
X-ray fusion photo snail shells composition II © Julian Köpke Fusion imaging works with a light box. Without, too. It depends on your subject. The light images were taken with a Leica Q, pointing just in the same direction as the X-rays from below of the X-ray tube. The resolution and technology is completely sufficient for the color use.
I designed a new composition, which should allow me to have different positions of the shells in space. The surrounding snail shells serve as supports.
X-ray fusion photo snail shells composition III © Julian Köpke I wanted to take the yellow, quit radiopaque snail shell from above. So I had to rearrange the snail shells once more.
When looking at my flickr stream you may find other representations in the preceding neighborhood of this image.
X-ray fusion photo snail shells composition IV © Julian Köpke -
X-ray fusion photo of a sphere of snail shells
This X-ray fusion image is untrue. No time during working hours to take the photograph. So I made a photo this morning at home. There are so many snail shells glued on the sphere that it is basically not noticeable if the rotation does not match exactly.
Here is my result:
X-ray fusion photo of a sphere of snail shells © Julian Köpke The underlying structure in an image of visible light looks like this:
Sphere of snail shells © Julian Köpke -
Calendar 2020
Harold says: 9 out of ten attempts fail. That’s a good consolation. What happened ?
A company and I could not agree on the fee for an annual calendar 2020. I liked the selection of the proposed pictures, consisting of flower macros and fusion images with X-ray. „Don’t call us, we call you !“
I’m not a merchant and I don’t live on sales. But how many have to listen to such sentences every day.
With a little help from my elder daughter I did the calendar on my own.
-
New wine X-ray photo of Pinot Noir
The expression „new wine“ is ambiguous in the German language. On the one hand, this refers to grape juice that has not yet begun to ferment. On the other hand, this means the freshly harvested grapes.
By chance we were given a delivery of fresh harvested grapes of the Pinot Noir variety, which we immediately subjected to an X-ray examination. An additional photograph of the composition from below the exit point of the X-rays was taken quickly with a Leica Q.
The result of this image fusion is shown here:
Pinot noir X-ray fusion image © Julian Köpke -
Spider conch X-ray fusion photo
A friend gave me a shell of a spider conch to make more fusion images. The scientific name of the spider conch is lambis lambis and it is a sea snail. There is a nice Wikipedia article on it.
The hard shell with a lot of radiopaque lime made me doubt the success of my X-rays. On top, my first attempt at a HighKey image wasn’t really convincing. Only the combination of a normal photography for the color, a HighKey image for a transparency effect together with the X-ray image resulted in nice image.
Fusion image spider conch X-ray and photo seen from the bottom © Julian Köpke 
Fusion image spider conch (lambis lambis) X-ray and photo seen from above © Julian Köpke The X-ray image appear less lively, but full of formal power. The orientation of the animal is conveyed by the photographically reproduced color. There are only minimal hints wich orientation the X-ray has.
These are the corresponding X-ray images:
Spider conch (lambis lambis) © Julian Köpke 
Spider conch (lambis lambis) © Julian Köpke -
Orchid X-ray fusion photo
It feels like very long ago. Harold and I were taking the shots and X-rays of new compositions last week of April this year. Our first try was an orchid with two stems. The transparency effect is very much augmented using an X-ray. A stem behind petals doesn’t show easily in HDR light box photography.
With a Phase One camera at my disposal a strong crop of the composition shows the tenderness of our orchid much better. With a resolution still sufficient.
Orchid fusion X-ray photo © Julian Köpke -
Purple Clematis
Clematis is a reliably blossoming flower in our garden. Every year we look forward to her blooms for many weeks. Photographing flowers means sacrificing beautiful little things. It took me some time to go there.
With growing experience I feel less pain to sacrifice a bloom for artistic purposes. It relieves me a little, that I have the blooms swum after my photo and X-ray sessions in a soup-plate filled with water which is in the kitchen. Many people like the floating blooms in a soup-plate, if they are in a break.
The HDR series of my composition with three clematis gave me a hard time. Although a tripod is indispensable and always used, a small pixel shift between exposures was perceivable. After fixing this, light, color and structure was processed for an HDR image.
The X-ray of the three clematis was performed as mammography due to the size of my composition. The fusion image can be understood as a texturized HDR by means of a radiograph. But there is no unique solution to all compositions. The best solution has to be found out individually.
After all, the clematis look as light as a feather in this image. It was worth it.
Three purple Clematis fusion X-ray photo © Julian Köpke -
Purple Clematis
Long lasting blossoms, turning up every year: my purple clematis in our garden.
It was my third X-ray session with flowers this week. Third fusion imaging attempt. After blue cornflower and blue aquilegia now a purple clematis. Big data on my hard disk.
Today we did it with mammography at 30 kV and 50 mAs. Lower noise ! Here is the positive representation of a single clematis:
Clematis X-ray photo © Julian Köpke I processed the lightbox HighKey series with a mask. There was a shift of 2 or 3 pixels from the lightest to the darker images. So I processed everything a second time to compensate for the shift. The HDR image shows a cut stalk. Photoshop is made for this.
Purple Clematis © Julian Köpke The stalk can be lengthened like in the preceding X-ray. The fusion image shows hidden leaves, the core of the blossom and stalks much better:
Purple Clematis X-ray fusion photo © Julian Köpke The flower looks pretty fragile now, close to its natural appearance.
-
Spring and X-ray fusion photos
First flowers in spring show up. With much support from my colleagues I’m able to do some fusion images. We all would like to have another calendar.
Preparing the lightbox, the X-ray machines, my camera and picking out the data is a bunch of hassle.
My personal favorite is the blue cornflower. It looks like a print of an old botanic book:
Cornflower X-ray fusion photo © Julian Köpke The next day I turned my attention to our white and blue Aquilegias. No chance to process the raw data yesterday. Eventually, there was a chance today, after quite a bit of tedious work at my desk:
Blue aquilegia X-ray fusion photo © Julian Köpke -
Gradients and X-ray tubes
Fusion imaging is a method full of surprise. My red calla lilies revealed an effect I had forgotten completely. There must be a gradient in every X-ray exposure.
Preparing a fusion image composition with my 6 red calla lilies I found a troublesome gradient in the X-ray.
Gradient in an X-ray of 6 red calla lilies © Julian Köpke The cause for the gradient is a weakening of X-ray radiation at its origin in the X-ray tube. A closer look at the phenomenon can be found in my FAQ. This effect of variable recording of photons phycisists call „anode heel effect“.
As part of my creative process I rotated the composition shown above by 180 degrees and exposed it a second time with the same parameters. Note that post-production as well was done equally for both X-ray exposures !
Gradient in an X-ray of 6 red calla lilies, inverted for creative reasons © Julian Köpke
