Leon Leboniste building for Discovery Squamish Magazine.
This winter the Discover Squamish magazine did a special edition on innovation in Squamish, with the new high tech construction company Leon Lebeniste being the lead story. They just build a new high tech facility in the Squamish industrial park. I left the weekly Squamish Chief when the Coronavirus hit about 18 months before I shot the pictures for this story, so I was really amazed to see the new ultra modern building sitting where there had been a very scruffy empty lot.
The Leon Lebeniste building, Squamish.
The first thing I did was come down to Squamish and get some exterior photos starting at sunset, which is the photo that turned into the magazine cover shot, then I went to dinner and came back at dusk to get the photo that turned into the double trunk (a rarity in publishing these days) lead photo to the story.
Leon Lebeniste CEO Jon Hewitt in the new Squamish building.
About a week later I was able to catch up with Leon Lebeniste CEO Jon Hewitt for some portraits. He had been away until just before the magazine deadline, so we lucky to get him.
Leon Lebeniste CEO Jon Hewitt with CNC router designer Ryan Westfahl.
One of their stunningly made CIC wood lathe created oak dining room chairs.
The Leon Lebeniste building in the Squamish industrial park.
Tech Stuff
I used my Nikon Z6 camera for all the photos. I’ve pretty much completely moved over to Nikon’s new mirrorless camera platform. For the exteriors I used my old 80’s era Nikkor 28mm PC perspective control lens. It must be close to 40 years old, but still works great on the latest Nikon camera, which is pretty amazing.
I used the Nikon Z 35mm f/1.8 lens for all the portraits. After 25 years of shooting with Nikon f/2.8 zooms, I’m trying to get back to high speed prime lenses. I’ll do a more detailed review in the future, but the quick takeaway is that I’m really loving this lens and it’s really quickly becoming my go to lens.
All the portraits were lit with a Godox AD600 Pro battery powered strobe. I had it turned down to almost it’s lowest power setting to balance with the existing light. I could have shot without it, but with the inside lighting, you get really heavy shadows around the eyes without any strobe.