Tag: Squannacook River Dam

Instant Grammar – page 34

The interest to capture this image came to me, as I was looking to get some nice sunlight reflected in the pond that is right next to this little building. One of those nice, quiet October mornings when you feel like it might still be Summer.

Beauty and Otherwise.
Beauty and Otherwise.

I didn’t really like the reflection that I could get, given the (self-imposed) constraint of using my iPhone for every shot during the year, and I had already photographed the nicely restored mill building across the road (you can see part of it in the “Instant Grammar – page 3” post and another part later).

So I started looking for something different and my eye was caught by the splash of red from the somewhat dilapidated berries in front of the very dilapidated building.  Putting the graffiti in the frame behind the berries allowed for a bit of juxtaposition of nature’s beauty against what can otherwise be created by humankind.

I hope you enjoyed visiting page 34 and feel free to take a look at the entire book at the following link for the softcover versionInstant Grammar 2013 by Frank Jansen.

Instant Grammar 2013 – Page 3

The first image in my book ‘Instant Grammar 2013’ was captured on January 1, 2013; a very nice day with snow left on the ground from a weather system that came through earlier in the week.

Janurary 1, 2013 - House at the Squannacook River Dam in Groton, MA.
Janurary 1, 2013 – House at the Squannacook River Dam in Groton, MA.

My good friend and fellow photographer, George, was visiting from Connecticut, so we planned to do a bit of wandering around on New Years Day and explore the area for some photo opportunities.
I had some locations in mind from my daily commute to the high-tech part of my life. This commute used to take me through various small towns with lots of interesting older architecture and locations. The Squannacook River Dam in this image was one of the locations on my list, as I enjoy water in my images and I knew there was potential for a good image.
It took a bit of clambering down the embankment to get the angle and framing of the image that is shown here. I wanted the house to rise above the dam and falls and use the sky and snow to complement one another, so as to provide a combination of the majesty of nature and structure, along with a sense of peaceful coexistence.
Hope you like this one! More can be found in the book at