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Light and shades of grey
Shades of grey in interaction with light: this is a theme for monochromatic images. For a long time I wanted to photograph an egg against a white background. The idea was stimulated by photos, mostly of people I know personally. Geometric, white-colored bodies from the mathematical collection would also be fun for me. Unfortunately, access is not as easy for me as with an egg.
Light and shades of grey © Julian Köpke On the left side the egg is brighter than the background, on the right side it is the other way round. The background itself loses a little brightness from the left to the right, but is brighter than the the egg on the right. The contrast changes. There is no clearly defined shadow for this setup. The same is true in the next photograph.
White egg on a white background © Julian Köpke With the help of a simple light source whose color temperature does not matter after conversion into a black and white image, a soft shadow can be achieved if the source is not point-shaped.
Shadow cast of an egg © Julian Köpke 
Shadow cast of three eggs on white © Julian Köpke -
Ups and downs
January 6th is a holiday in our region, commemorating the three holy kings or three wise men, who had been probably astronomers. The Orthodox Churches celebrate Christmas. In the United States of America, a reigning madman with his mob is degrading his country to a banana republic. Looking at this rises questions about our German history 87 years ago.
I spent the whole night absorbing the latest news. Sleeping was almost difficult if not impossible. This morning a bug in the Flickr software ? A picture of mine with so many views and favorites ? Well, that was the good surprise this morning after all: an in explore for a picture I had been thinking about for a long time and that I repeatedly failed: taking tree trunks in landscape format.
This time it worked out better than expected. Christa and I started a late walk up at Posseltslust to see some people riding sledges. We took a forest trail away from the slopes. The twilight was already advanced, the ISO high and the aperture only slightly closed. A pleasant winter light surrounded us. Between the tress it became bright, the tree trunks covered with snow below. This image got an in explore.
Tree trunks in winter near Posseltslust in Heidelberg © Julian Köpke Not far from there, I made a second attempt of the scene, which seems a bit more delicate in my eyes. I posted it two days later.
Tree trunks in winter near Posseltslust in Heidelberg © Julian Köpke Winter forest looks a it like a fairy tale to me. That is why color is also important, which additionally stimulates the imagination. Even a tree trunk presumably struck by lightning becomes a sight to behold. It works with the color even if there is only little light.
Broken tree in the forest near Posseltslust in Heidelberg © Julian Köpke At the end of the forest path, a light shines like in a cathedral, in which the faithful are moving. Is there the light at the end of the tunnel ?
Walk through the forest in winter near Posseltslust in Heidelberg © Julian Köpke -
New X-ray fusion photo compositions
New year, new ideas. A superbe bowl of fruits inspired me to do more X-ray fusion photography today. I got a bundle of bananas, lots of lychees, two pears, figs, an apple and a pomegranate.
I changed my technique a bit. There is no chance to get a transparent banana image using a photo. But mixing the colors of the photo with the X-ray is also a fusion image. To my opinion, the bananas came out lovely, especially the color of the trunk.
Fusion X-ray photo of bananas © Julian Köpke I like stills. They often come with a fruit bowl. My first attempt was a fruit bowl without lychees. The structure of an orange or a pomegranate is known to me from earlier X-ray studies. And I liked the grain of the wooden bowl.
The following fusion image is resulting:
Fruit bowl X-ray fusion photo © Julian Köpke This is the first time I tried to x-ray lychees. I piled them up in my wooden bowl. That way it was a bit less complicated to transport them for photography. They shouldn’t move at all between X-ray and photography session. I was lucky.
X-ray fusion photo of lychees in a wooden bowl © Julian Köpke Combining lychees, bananas, a pear and two figs in a fusion image yields a color explosion in the fusion image.
X-ray fusion photo of lychees and fruit in a wooden bowl © Julian Köpke Last but not least an X-ray fusion photo of all fruit. Color explosion by means of Lab color. The dark blue at the image edges is a good counterweight to the intense yellow of the pears and bananas.
Fruit X-ray fusion photo © Julian Köpke See also my FAQ section to learn more about fusion imaging with X-ray and photography.
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Vegetables X-ray photography
Harold implanted the idea of X-rays with onions in me. Although more than covered with professional requirements, I tried my hand at vegetable x-ray photography.
I can say it’s fun. Although a defective screen had to be replaced at the beginning. And you need some patience. Not every shot shows its beauty from the beginning. Some have to be developed first.
Let’s start with a corncob. It has many outer leaf layers, which lie close to it. X-rays look through and show the layers at the edge of the bulb as fine lines.
Corncob X-ray photo © Julian Köpke Here is a comparison of X-ray on the left side versus Mammography on the right side. A Belgian endive and a lettuce show much more contrast and fine structure in a mammography whereas X-ray gives more the impression of softness. Which goes well for a salad.
Chickory (Belgian endive) and lettuce X-ray photo © Julian Köpke 
Chickory (Belgian endive) and lettuce mammography X-ray photo © Julian Köpke Onions have a lot of liquid and are therefore radiopaque. I was curious to see which method would make it better to reveal the layerstructure of the onions. To my surprise mammography did a pretty good job.
Onions mammography X-ray photo © Julian Köpke 
Onions mammography X-ray photo © Julian Köpke Conventional X-ray offers more mystery, especially when you stack onions.
Stacked onions X-ray photo © Julian Köpke Some kind of layered structure also has fennel. I got two specimen that looked like mittens.
Fennel © Julian Köpke This year we had so many apples in our garden. They are red and look juicy. I had the chance to take two of them to my X-ray machine. With the help of two different orientations an interesting picture succeeds, because on of the apples still has a small branch.
May be there is some truth in the saying: an apple a day keeps the doctor away. But as the dentist would say: no teeth, no apple.
Sleeping beauty's choice © Julian Köpke 
An apple a day keeps the doctor away © Julian Köpke -
Do you like Karl Blossfeldt ?
Karl Blossfeldt was a German photographer who lived from 1865 to 1932. He didn’t think himself a photographer. With his studies of plant forms he made an enormous contribution to plant photography. Here is a nice wikipedia article about him.
He started to do photograms. Plants or parts of plants were placed directly on film or paper suitable for exposure. Exposure then takes place without any optics. Later he built himself a wooden camera, which reminds me of Andreas Feininger.
Black and white backlit macro images with a background can be similar to Blossfeldt’s images.
Silver leaf © Julian Köpke 
Heucheria in bloom © Julian Köpke 
Vetch © Julian Köpke 
Day lily © Julian Köpke -
X-ray images
Digital X-ray photo of a sunflower (inverted representation). © Julian Köpke 
X-ray three tulips © Julian Köpke 
Nautilus shell as a vessel © Julian Köpke 
Five Dahlias X-ray photo © Julian Köpke 
Nautilus X-Ray Energy Compressed © Julian Köpke 
Odyssey © Julian Köpke 
Nautilus shell 3D Digital X-ray Photo tilted beam © Julian Köpke -
Tilted Nautilus X-ray photo
Imagine a Nautilus shell tilted to the surface of the X-ray sensor. The parts close to the sensor are sharp, the distant parts unsharp. Because the X-ray beam creates a central projection. The focal plane is the plane of the sensor, in focus are those parts close to the sensor.
The shell looks like entering the image or leaving it.
Tilted Nautilus digital X-ray photo. © Julian Köpke -
Sunflower X-ray photos revisited
How to show the sun in the middle of a sunflower ? For astronomers it is quite common to look at the sun in hydrogen alpha light, which is a pure red at 635nm. With artistic eyes, a red center might be overdone.
So I tried two different representations, one in BW that is close to the natural look and feel of a sunflower and one with a light blue in the center as complementary color to the yellow petals.
This sunflower is a fusion photo of X-ray, monochromatic Hα light of the sun converted to BW and a sunflower on a lightbox. © Julian Köpke 
This sunflower is a fusion photo of X-ray, monochromatic Hα light of the sun converted to blue and a sunflower on a lightbox. © Julian Köpke The surface structure of our sun can be seen like astronomers see it.
There is no photo of the next digital X-ray image of a sunflower with its stalk and a leaf:
Digital X-ray photo of a sunflower (inverted representation). © Julian Köpke -
End of wintertime
Our weather is more and more weird. Today was the second day with a warm sun and a blue sky. Nights are getting pretty cold, days up to 25 degrees Celsius.
Cleaning up our garden led us to some old physalis which were a little more than a skeleton. In autumn these fruits look like lanterns, now they resemble an X-ray.
I did this shot on a lightbox using manual HDR technique.In Lab color mode I obtained this image with a pur black background.
It’s an exoskeleton for the fruit inside which remains that way without bruises.
Physalis after winter has gone. © Julian Köpke -
X-ray Odyssey
How to communicate an erratic process in terms of an image ? The Iliadic greek were pirates of the Mediterranean with fast vessels, invading mainland from the seas, enslaving people, robbing stocks and much more.
The writing down of the Ilias was between 678 and 662 B.C., a time of Assyrian dominance and cultural superiority.
With three different Nautilus shells I bought last September on Crete I did this composition on my big X-ray sensor with 35cm x 43 cm and 170µm per pixel resolution. Two energy levels were necessary to get a high resolution image of the core of the Nautilus shells.
Odyssey © Julian Köpke To overcome the look-and-feel of a medical X-ray it is a logical idea to invert the light. Black becomes white and vice versa. White means shining through of X-rays, black means opacity. It’s like a dream !
Odyssey (light inversion) © Julian Köpke
