Waterverloop in Bandung 1900 - 1935

Neville Keasberry made this stereo card of Waterverloop in Bandung sometime around the late 19th or early 20th century, a moment caught in gelatin silver. What strikes me is the ordered arrangement of the natural world. The way the cascade mimics the regularity of the fencing. The strange intertwining of the roots with the ordered masonry. Did you see that? How the ordered world reflects the freedom of the natural world, and vice versa? I think Keasberry saw this too. The formal and the informal arranged together in conversation. It reminds me a little of the photographic work of Eugène Atget, though the atmosphere here is somehow dreamier, maybe even a little sadder, and the interplay of the different elements gives it a vitality that stays with you long after you've stopped looking.