They say beauty is only skin deep – but Hugh Turvey’s x-rays of flowers show they are captivating through and through. Hugh, who trained as a designer / art director before studying photography Gered Mankowitz, first used X-rays in 1996 to photograph a human skull as a favour to a musician friend who needed an image for an album cover. He has since used the technique to produce a series of coloured x-rays of everyday objects

A dozen roses

Hugh, 39, has been fascinated since childhood with getting underneath the surface of things. He said: “I’m driven by my curiosity. It’s about discovering the world around us. As a kid I would take things apart to see what was inside and how they worked. I have an insane curiosity for how things work. X-ray gives me a way to get that insight and turn it into art”

Arum lilies

Honesty seed pods

Anthurium

Elderflower

A coloured X-ray of a rose

A coloured X-ray of a lily

Thistles

A close-up of an X-ray of a thistle flower

Stargazer lilies

An orchid (Stanhopea hasselvoliana)

Seaweed

Seaweed

Tulips

A rose

Nigella damascena (Love-in-a-mist) seed capsules

Agapanthus

Lisianthus flowers

flames

book carving

sculpture from paper