Pagina 103 van fotoboek van de Algemeene Vereeniging van Rubberplanters ter Oostkust van Sumatra (A.V.R.O.S.) c. 1924 - 1925

This photograph, by J.W. Meyster, comes from a photo book of the Algemeene Vereeniging van Rubberplanters, and it gives us this incredible tableau of a Sumatran rubber plantation. It feels like a landscape painting, doesn’t it? Imagine Meyster, composing this shot. What did he want to capture? The trees there, like strokes of gray against the sky, feel like the beginning of something, a mark of potential. And that dense foliage below is like a field of feeling, an environment of sensation. I’m always thinking about what painting can do, but photography too can be a kind of embodied expression. A painter like Fairfield Porter comes to mind here, with that same careful rendering of light. I wonder if they knew each other’s work. It’s interesting to think about artists in conversation like that, seeing and responding to each other.