a story and a picture

She was not allowed near anyone’s television, she was not allowed to hold a remote. The last time she tried she was unattended, she was 3, and her parents were questioned for negligence and abuse for leaving their child alone in a burning room.
When she touched the voice recording machine and it sparked and exploded, the parents’ explanation was believed and they were sent home with their electric baby.
At the doctor, he shook his head.
"There is nothing wrong with this baby," he said, "but please don’t let her near my ear flashlight."

It had heated uncontrollably in his hands. 

excerpt from "Electricity and Assuredness" by Christopher Hermelin 

(click on the link to see the photo)

There are some people in the world you should be aware of, or at least, I know them and shall highly recommend them to you. The first of these are Christopher Hermelin and Max Elman. They run a project called A Story and a Picture. Can you guess? Every Sunday they post a photo by Max and a thousand words from Christopher. I asked them a few questions so that you might catch a bit of the charm behind the site.

Max and Christopher

C: I started writing about 20 years ago. I was four and I told stories and had my Mom write them down. As far as stories I wrote myself, I came across some journals from Kindergarten/1st grade and there was a story I was writing every day, about a dog... I think. There were drawings that went with them, and I think I was drawing a dog. It's hard to tell.

Max and I met in radio class and became friends when we started getting dinner together at the dining hall afterwards when we realized we had similar music taste. 

M: Christopher and I had talked for quite some time about combining our two passions - photography and writing. While living together in San Francisco, we decided to make it a reality, created a website, some guidelines, and a posting schedule that we've tried to stick with. A Story and a Picture was born - a fun little project of combining a 1000 word short story that he writes with one of my images. Christopher has quite a few writing styles, and I have various photographic styles, so it's fun to see how they mesh together. We've now created just under 50 posts and are figuring out where to take the project next.

C: I have always loved the phrase, "A picture is worth 1,000 words" and I love that our project embodies that idea. I've always thought Max's photography lent itself to storytelling... and his web savvy and dedication to taking pictures every day helped too. 

M: I've loved photography as long as I've had real interests of my own (Liking race cars as a little kid doesn't really count, right? Let's say around age 12+). There's something pretty magical about being able to freeze a moment in time and somehow capture so much more than you were even aware was there. Taking something ordinary and turning it into something extraordinary can be extremely difficult, but photography and digital manipulation definitely levels the playing field.

C: I'm currently  fascinated with trying to understand unifying theories and with the Battleheart combat game for iPhone. I lost my cell phone yesterday, and now that I'm putting it together, it's because I was torn between reading the last volume of Skippy Dies (by Paul Murray), watching a new episode of Dexter, and playing Battleheart on my commute home. This, combined with the realization that the dinner I had bought from work was leaking in my backpack and a song I didn't like playing on the shuffle function of my iPod, all added up to losing my phone when I switched trains. To me, this shows two things. One, always get phone insurance. Two, have a plan for your day and stick to it. Plans mean less choices, and weighing choices while commuting always adds up to missed stops and lost items.

M: The bulk of my time goes towards the business I started, Razorfrog Web Design. I create websites and graphics for all sorts of clients, and occasionally I get to work on something really creative and interesting. It's fun, but pretty draining. Other than that, I've been doing a photo-a-day project for all of 2010 and 2011, and ride my motorcycle around the coast and curvy mountain roads of the Bay Area.

(Make sure to check out Harbingers: an image of synchronized pigeons and story of whimsical doom)