In Loving Memory of

ALBERT C. KOETSIER

Albert Koetsier, world-renowned photographer and creator of X-rayography – A Convergence of Science, Art and Nature, passed away on October 17, 2025, in Wildomar, CA.

Obituary

Acclaimed for his unique eye for artistic photography, Albert was a lover of science, music, art, history, & philosophy. He was also a respected manager & director at both Phillips and Siemens corporations, an expert in the field of X-ray technology, a highly successful business owner, and also an acclaimed visiting lecturer.Albert Koetsier is best known for creating artistic X-ray photographs of seashells and flowers, a process he called X-rayography. From that he built a highly successful art business called Beyond Light, based on successfully marketing the art worldwide. Amazingly, that was just one of his many careers and perhaps surprisingly, not the one he enjoyed the most.Albert was born in the Netherlands and was a highly inquisitive child, growing up in the challenging post-WWII era. His father was a veteran and was sent to a labor camp in Germany. After the war, he became the owner of the main store in the small town where Albert grew up. Consequently, his father was also known around town as the go-to repair person for anything mechanical or electronic. Albert shared the same curiosity about mechanics as his father, and eventually graduated with top marks and a degree in engineering at the Netherlands’ primary technical university in Hilversum.Throughout his childhood and young adulthood, Albert was fascinated by photography. He constructed his own camera as a pre-teen, using a cardboard box, some lenses he had hustled to acquire, and even adding a spring-loaded shutter, this was only the start of his interest in photography. He also built his own darkroom in the upper part of the house, complete with amber lighting, despite not having electricity nearby. For the photographic developer and fixer, he used his mother’s dishes, much to her dismay. This propensity for finding solutions and being resourceful, along with a healthy curiosity about science and technology, would shape his entire life.Through a stroke of luck, at the age of 16, he acquired a real Dallmeyer Snapshot Camera, an old model from the 1920s, but worth a king’s ransom in his eyes. It would take him a year to pay off, but this laid the seeds for a life-long interest in the history of photography. Consequently, he became an avid collector of old and antique cameras, building a collection that included many unique very early cameras.After completing his own compulsory military service as an officer, he also completed his studies, met his future wife, and arrived home to a job offer from Phillips Medical Systems. He often joked he found his degree, his wife, and his first job all in one weekend. As one of the foremost specialists in the new field of X-ray technology, this afforded him many travel opportunities during which he took every opportunity to take photos of the people he met and the places he visited. Over the years, Albert has taken over 50,000 photos all over the world. In addition to an impressive collection of antique cameras, he has also amassed a large collection of classical music records and such a large collection of books (in multiple languages) that they didn’t even fit inside his home.However, Albert’s interest in photography always took precedence. He specialized in black and white film photography, whose subjects included landscapes, people, historical sites, abstract subjects, and just about anything that is thought-provoking. For Albert, a photo should tell a story, describe a concept, or remind you of an interesting event in your life. Albert had an eye for irony and a desire to show the story beyond the image. While other photographers ultimately switched to color photography, or popular subjects, and even digital cameras, Albert stayed true to black & white film photography purely as art. He considered photography the art of painting with light.If photography is painting with light, then what about the X-rays produced by the machines he was responsible for at work? The answer to that question would remain an interest for most of his life. On one of his many service trips, he visited Würtzberg, the town where Roentgen discovered X-rays. While working in a hospital there, he noticed a calendar that had X-ray images of flowers. It was just an Agfa promotion to advertise their products in hospitals. The doctor in charge didn’t see the point of using such an expensive machine for such a pointless subject as a flower...However, for Albert, this awoke in him an interesting new idea; if only X-ray machines were more accessible. This idea would germinate for many more years, but it wasn’t until much later that Albert had the opportunity to acquire a very outdated X-ray machine of his own. Ever the tinkerer, he purchased it at great expense, repaired it, and after a few more years, starting in the early 1990s, he managed to generate his first X-rays. However, he was still working full-time and the idea of creating X-rays was just a hobby he barely had time for, so the project stagnated a few more years. It was not until the late 1990s that he returned to the X-ray machine and started experimenting with different subjects: insects, interesting leaves, and even a tiny bird that had died flying into the kitchen window. However, these were all dead things so these subjects seemed rather morbid.Ironically, it was through one of these morbid X-rays that Albert’s eureka moment came to him. One day, a dead lizard was found in the backyard pool, but the suspicion was that the house cat was involved with the crime. While the dead lizard had no obvious injuries, Albert decided to use his newly revived X-ray machine to investigate. Lizards were not an interesting subject, per se, but there was a greater purpose here. In the end, his suspicion had been correct: the poor creature had a crushed leg and some obvious bite marks.After a proper burial in the backyard, and after the guilty party was confined to the garage for the remainder of the day, Albert used the X-ray as a negative to enlarge a “positive” print on photographic paper to preserve this moment. He saw it as an interesting example of the usefulness of X-rays in everyday life. He wrote a note on the edge of the photo: “Lizard with a Broken Leg” and hung it outside his dark room, more as a humorous anecdote than as actual art. A few months later a colleague visiting the house said of the image: “That looks rather artistic. I would pay real money for that photo.”This is how X-rayography was born. Over the next 20 years, Albert discovered unique new subjects to make X-ray images of. With each new series, the art grew in popularity. First it was seashells, then flowers, then leaves, and eventually abstract subjects using combinations of these. He also studied how in the early days of photography, artists used to paint colors onto black and white photographs to add color. He then came up with a similar technique to hand-tint his own X-rayographs.With the hand-tinting, the art again grew in popularity, so much so that Albert was approached by book publishers, and licensing companies to produce derivative works using his X-rayographs. At first, he resisted, but eventually his pieces were made available as prints in large stores from Home Depot to IKEA. Albert then published two books of his X-rayography. His art can also be found as decorative tiles in fine hotels, printed on t-shirts, used as subjects for tattoos, and, ironically, as decorative art on Kaiser and Hoag hospital walls. They have also made an appearance in movies, as well as popular TV shows like Friends and Will & Grace. You could say that X-rayography’s popularity far exceeded Albert’s expectations.By 2010, Albert shifted his focus away from travel and art shows and started to enjoy the fruits of his hard work and considered retiring with his wife, Anne, at their home in Lake Elsinore in Southern California. It should be noted that she was not only a great moral support, traveling with him to the shows all those years, but she also helped build the business. In fact, she painted most of the X-rays. While Albert was always looking for new directions, Anne managed the logistics and the practical aspects of an artist’s life. I’m quite certain that the business would never have been as without Anne by his side.With the art business now behind him, Albert began developing lectures. Initially they were about art and photography, but they eventually covered all his favorite topics including history, science, philosophy, and music. He didn’t yet know how he was going to share these lectures, and doing so online seemed rather impersonal. So, he reached out to local colleges to see if they needed lecturers. Surprisingly, they did, and at the age of 73, Albert started an entirely new career as a visiting lecturer. For the next ten years, he taught classes at the California State College System, the University of California, as well as for various educational organizations. He covered topics as diverse as: Beethoven’s Life, the History of Photography, Hitler vs. Stalin, and Oppenheimer (well before the Hollywood film was released).While Albert is best known for his work creating X-rayography and making it into a widely recognized art form, he also wanted to be remembered for his lectures. When he asked me to include this part of his life on his X-rayography website, I initially hesitated as it seemed unrelated. However, I now understand that this, along with all his other achievements, completes the story that is his life. No one part exists in isolation for him. To understand Albert the artist, one must consider his entire life journey.Few people know this, but he was an avid lover of classical music. He purchased his first record, Beethoven’s 5th conducted by Otto Klemperer, before he acquired his first real Dallmeyer camera. While his friends were dancing to the Beatles on the radio, he was figuring out ways to fine-tune that radio to better pull in German classical stations. That was the person my father was: infinitely inquisitive about the physical world around him as well as the less tangible world of science, art, music and philosophy beyond it.Albert was never fearful of the unknown, always looking for ways to make life interesting for himself, but especially for the benefit of all the important people around him – he never tired of being a teacher and a mentor. He was kind, intuitive, empathetic, and giving in ways few people are. He had a magnetic personality and had an uncanny ability to speak with anyone about anything. We are convinced that this was the source of the many success in his life. We stand in awe of everything our father accomplished, saw, and shared with the world. We will miss him dearly, and so will the many people who’ve come to know him over the years, but I think the entire world will miss him too.Albert is survived by his wife Anne, and his three children with their partners, Esmoreit (& Sayeh), Amber (& Shivendra), and Michael (& Marie), as well as his five grandchildren.

Photos of Albert

Condolences

My sincerest condolences for your loss. I own one of Albert's Cala Lilies and it greets me every time that I walk into my living room. I shall forever be grateful for how this brightens my day.
- Anne B.

Such a wonderful soul. I much enjoyed meeting Albert in Ann Arbor and discussing the finer points of science and art.
- David M.

Our thoughts and prayers are with you and your family. May you find peace in his memory.
- Joshua

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Thank You

We are grateful for all the kind words and support from Albert's family and friends during this difficult time.