X-ray photographer digs deep into earthmoving plant

By David Palmer

Nick Veasey, a British photographer from Kent, has produced a number of images of well known objects using x-rays to penetrate well below the surface view.

Included in the images are side-on views of a wheel loader and a bulldozer shown here. In the wheel loader shot, the operator seems as if he has been cut down to size by the x-rays, and somehow looks much more vulnerable than he otherwise would.

For some reason his helmet seems to be sitting on his head at the wrong angle and not in reality to be offering much real protection.

In fact says Veasey, he never uses live people for such pictures. “The operator was x-rayed separately. As radiation is cumulative and dangerous to humans I never expose a living person (or animal) to radiation, so I use stiffs. Just the dead body was 13 separate x-rays,” he said.

Veasey said he had been involved in x-ray photography for 15 years. “I don't want to stop, and I don't want to do anything else. But what I do is extremely complex and bloody dangerous. I use various x-ray machines and the thicker the subject the more radiation you need.”

He said the biggest single difficulty was that because he x-rays on film, the image on the film is the same size as the object. “But the largest available film is 35 x 43cm. So if you are x-raying something big, like a bulldozer, I break it down into sections. In the case of the bulldozer that was more than 200 pieces of film.

“So typically a finished image will be dozens of x-rays scanned, retouched and assembled. Sometimes many more,” Veasey said. Some parts of the wheel loader though, were simplified as they “were too messy, too complex in reality, when x-rayed.”

Asked why he does it, he said: “because I think they look really nice. Also the images have a significant message in today's society that is obsessed with the superficial image.

“You name it, I'll x-ray it. But personal projects are those with a resonance for me, such as using a technology used to look at bones, to capture creatures without bones like invertebrates/insects.”

Did the owners/operators of the equipment see anything in the photographs that surprised them? Beauty, detail and interest, Veasey said.

Mostly he works in his studio in Kent, but occasionally in specialised x-ray laboratories, around the world. On his website is a composite image of people in a bus. For a short time it was reproduced life size and applied to a New York bus.But too many people, stunned by the image, missed their buses, and the picture was removed, Veasey said.

More information: www.veasey.com

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X-ray photographer digs deep into earthmoving plant

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