Photos with Ben Ritter

Had a hard time waking up this morning. Six hours of sleep just doesn’t cut it anymore for this old horse. Em and I had an hour to shower, inhale a tuna bagel and try to come up with some outfits that would pass as minimally stylish by Brooklyn standards. This proved to be a difficult feat for two girls who haven’t done any serious shopping for the last 3 years.

Taking pictures sounds fun enough but it’s actually kinda stressful making sure I don’t look like a douche. There’s the unspoken nightmare about band photos – getting stuck with that one photo where everyone else looks like a stud and I look like a clown, which means I get outvoted and have to live with it for the next half year. But we were grateful. Ben Ritter has an impressive resume, must mean he finds some way to make nerdy people look cool. Case in point, Ben Gibbard (pictured)!

We got some good solid direction on the concept of this photo shoot: ‘Look as hip as possible.’ ok well so that’s totally useless. So I just stuffed a hodgepodge of clothing in my bag. Brett and John were asleep up until 12pm, 15 minutes before we had to leave. Damn them for being able to just get up and go take pictures. But they do miss out on the fun of picking out shoes and hair accessories.

Ben was nice and funny, not unlike our other photog fave Shervin Lainez in DC. Here’s Brett getting his own private photo shoot by Aaron in between sessions.

Then he feigns bashfulness.

Em looks on with mild interest.

Ben discusses the photo set-up.