Ben Prichard

I had a wonderful trip to Chicago over the weekend, you can check out the photos here. It just doesn’t seem appropriate to go through the vacation bit by bit, maybe when things have settled I will have the time to do so.

But on my way to the airport to fly back to NYC I got a phone call that my friend Ben whom I had gone to RIT with had passed away. A few years ago he had undergone open heart surgery, because he lived everyday for what it was and never let anything slow him down I think we all began to forget that he had cardiovascular problems. He was in a BMX race on Saturday and suffered from a heart attack. Everyone says this about anyone they lose but he was honestly one of the sweetest kind-hearted people I knew. I think I remembered seeing him around at shows in Rochester when I first started at school; he was straight edge Ben… that would change eventually and Ben Francisco cause he was from Cali. I was never really with the “In crowd” when it came to the Rochester scene but I do remember getting to know him better once my good friend Kate moved into a house with him and one other RIT student. I remember sitting and listening to cursive and just hanging out with Ben and Kate. After college Ben came to visit NYC and he Kate and I met up, I remember going to Brooklyn with him to visit one of his friends and at the time having a tough time with ending spending time with a mutual friend of mine and bens, I was kind of talking to him and he gave me a very different perspective on it and to not let pettiness take charge of trying to keep a relationship with someone I cared about. I remember going and meeting him at some fish place on 2o-something street at this fish place during my lunch break from my internship at spin magazine and agreeing to meet him later to pose for this project he was assisting on. 50 portraits in something like 50 states or cities, I can’t remember exactly. And I remember he was a good person who was an incredible photographer, we were flicker contacts and I would go through the two weddings he had photographed (the both were kind of friends of friends) and I remember knowing that if I ever did get married I wanted Ben to photograph it. I think the hardest thing I have had to do twice now is take someone’s phone number out of my cell phone. We're all going to suffer from heavy hearts for a while.

atleast he left doing what he loved.