Core with cockles

This is a photo of an xray of a sediment core taken in the Wadden Sea. The

shells are cockle shells. The layers are due to different sediment fractions

(coarser sand or finer silt). Because this concerns dead material I decided

to place the photo in Still Life category.

Please let me know what you think. How can I improve my photographs?

Thank you for any comments/critiques, it is much welcomed!

Marieke, this is an interesting image by virtue of the subject matter. Basically you have transferred a two-dimensional subject matter into a two-dimensional photograph which, IMO, makes it difficult to access with the standard critique tools. 

You do not mention whether this is the full x-ray or if this is a composition within the x-ray. The information you supplied regarding the x-ray is interesting, but attempting to read the photograph without knowing that it is an x-ray is possibly more interesting. There is considerable mystery, ambiguity within the design. There are many elements that could be read as possible landscape elements which give considerable mystery to the actual cockle shells. There is an interesting range of tonality and texture. 

Were it mine I would print it fairly large, frame it very nicely and never tell anyone exactly what it is. As a tool for psychoanalyzing your friends and family it is possibly far superior to a Rorschach Inkblot Text.

It is impossible to determine how you could improve this photograph without seeing the original x-ray. Even then it would depend upon how
objectively or how subjectively you approached the subject matter. As far as objectively, saying you wanted the photograph to mimic the original, you should, with the original, be able to determine how close you came in reproducing the tonal range, how find the reproduction of detail between the two. Subjectively, using the x-ray as a point of departure to create an image with possibly a totally new connotation (which I think you actually have regardless of intent)—would be dependent upon knowing your original intent, actually knowing the original, especially if this is a crop from within the x-ray. Regardless, as it is it is an image that stands well on its own. I surely would not be hesitant to have it hanging on my wall.

As a suggestion, have you thought about printing this as a negative image?

Thank you very much for commenting on this photo, Gary! It is indeed part of a larger xray. The width of the picture is the width of the gravity core (which is 9 to 10 cm in diameter). About the length: the core is first split into ~90 cm parts on board, then each is cut into ~30 cm parts length. 

What I personally like about this picture is the detail in the cockle shells, and the 3D that you can still see in it (or maybe that is just me?). Apart from cockles, I think you can also see a lot of Hydrobia (at the top), which are tiny marine gastropods. 

I will look at it again with the xray next to it and decide if I am happy with the details, as you suggested. 

Especially with this photo I wonder what other people might see in it; what they like about it and what they do not. Generally the photographer (me in this case) still reads the story behind the picture as it was, but if this is also conveyed to spectators is something else. 

Thank you for commenting!
- Marieke