waterloopbos

2026-05-12

the "water flow forest" is an open-air laboratory for conducting various types of simulations and experiments regarding the flow of water from before the widespread availability of computers. nowadays, it is obviously no longer in use for that, but the contraptions remain, and the forest is allowed to reclaim the space taken up by these objects.

all the pictures on this page were shot on kodak gold film with my praktica nova ii. i used my helios-44m lens (my only lens).

the forest

the main paths in the forest are mostly hardened, so getting around was not hard. on occasion i had to make a detour or backtrack because my bike was too wide for a bridge. of course, it's a water laboratory, so there is plenty of water to cross.

on the day that i was there, i had a few moments of sunshine that made for some quite spectacular scenes. in other moments, the weather and lighting was a lot more harsh and dutch.

the contraptions

of course the most distinguishing aspect about this forest are the old machines, structures and other contraptions used for simulating the movement of the water in the various experiments.

there are also implements situated outside of the forest, for example the thing with the chain on it below.

below is one of my favorite photos of the whole roll; the one with the red and blue metal frame.

looking at the various sources on this place, it looks like i missed quite a few other installations. so i might go back later and add to this page :)