Joint X-Rays Show How Bones Move Freely In Their Sockets

It’s easy to forget, amid our busy whirlwind lives, we’re little more than stick figures encased in leaky bags of water. From the outside, all the stuff that goes on inside might as well be magic — the billions of thankless heartbeats, for example, or the trillions of brain cells working in sync to preserve what we call sanity.

Your joints come with their own air of mystery. Well-oiled bones and sockets give our arms the ability to flap like a bird and our ankles the freedom to put pedal to metal. Surrounded by skin, we never see these joints in action, but X-rays can offer some insight. Together with photographer Cameron Drake, orthopedist Dr. Noah Weiss compiled these five X-rays to shed a little invisible light on what goes on inside your body.

1. Shoulder