Portraits: Sébastien Decoppet

If you’ve seen a cigar with a small gold diamond on the wrapper, you’ve seen a cigar from Sébastien Decoppet’s Cavalier Genève. The Swiss-born Decoppet originally worked as a contractor for Japan Tobacco International before heading to Honduras in 2014. He originally wanted to go to the Caribbean, but a travel agent recommended Honduras because it was hurricane season. After a year of being in Honduras including a lot of time with the Plasencia family, Decoppet and Adin Perez developed the Cavalier blend while Eylin, Decoppet’s wife, came up with the idea for the golden diamond.

This portrait was taken in open sun in Dallas, Texas with a Sony a7RIII and a 50mm ƒ/1.4 lens set to ƒ/2 and 1/1000 of a second. The ISO was set at 100 and there was only one source of light: natural sunlight coming from Decoppet’s left. The photograph was converted from RAW in Photoshop 2018 and converted into black and white using custom actions.

The portrait used in the featured image was taken in open shade in Dallas, Texas with a Sony a7RIII and a 50mm ƒ/1.4 lens set to ƒ/1.6 and 1/1600 of a second. The ISO was set at 100 and there was only one source of light: natural sunlight coming from Decoppet’s right. The photograph was converted from RAW in Photoshop 2018.

The bio portion of this post was written by Charlie Minato.