Byung Kook Kwak
Chung-Ang University Hospital, Seoul, Korea
A radiologist uses medical imaging instruments to peer inside the human body in the search of abnormality, but the product of medical imaging, the x-ray, is also a form of photography. Like light, x-rays inherently sensitize a film or plate. As the x-ray penetrates an object, it transfers the image of the object to the film or plate with continued exposure. “X-ray art” is regarded as genre within the fields of art and photography. As is typical of photography, the x-ray is presented as black and white depending on the degree of penetration of x-ray; unlike general photography, internal structures can also be seen.
I have chosen the darkness of the sky or the river as a backdrop to the x-ray images displayed here. Because of their subtle darkness, these backgrounds highlight black and white images most effectively. Nowadays we can see sun and moon, but not stars in almost all cities. I hope these x-ray images will reawaken thoughts of forgotten dreams.
BYUNG KOOK KWAK, MD, is a professor in the department of radiology at Chung-Ang University Hospital, Seoul, Korea. He established an X-ray imaging resource center with radiologic doctors and technicians of Chung-Ang University Hospital in 2005. He and his team exhibited their artwork in the hospital gallery in 2006 and 2011.
Highlighted in Frontispiece Volume 5, Issue 1 – Winter 2013
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