Festival de la Bine: Photographing a Community in Motion

For several years, I had the privilege of serving as the official photographer for the Festival de la Bine in Plantagenet, Ontario.

What began as a celebration of a local culinary tradition grew into one of the region’s largest community events, attracting thousands of visitors over a single weekend. By its peak, the festival welcomed more than 7,000 attendees and brought together volunteers, performers, businesses, families, and visitors from across Eastern Ontario.

Led by Alain Lapensée and a dedicated team of organizers and volunteers, the festival transformed the grounds of École secondaire catholique de Plantagenet into a vibrant gathering place filled with music, competitions, food, and community spirit.

There were concerts, strongman competitions, truck pulls, arm wrestling events, family activities, local vendors, and, of course, the famous bean recipe competition that celebrated one of Plantagenet’s most enduring traditions. Major musical acts and entertainers took the stage throughout the weekend while hundreds of volunteers worked behind the scenes to make the event possible.

My first year at the festival included working alongside a group of student photographers, helping them document the event while learning the craft themselves. In later years, I expanded my role to include social media coverage and ongoing visual storytelling throughout the weekend.

What I remember most, however, is not the size of the crowds.

It was the people.

The Festival de la Bine was, in many ways, a giant community reunion. Everywhere I turned, I encountered familiar faces: volunteers serving meals, families enjoying the midway, children running between activities, local businesses supporting the event, and neighbours reconnecting with one another.

One moment I would be lying on the ground in front of a strongman competitor pulling an eighteen-wheeler truck, trying to capture the determination written across his face. The next, I would be photographing a child laughing with friends or a family singing along to a concert.

Those moments are what documentary photography is about.

The headline attraction may have been the concert, the competition, or the spectacle, but the story was always the people.

The Festival de la Bine reminded me that great community events are not built by stages, equipment, or entertainment alone. They are built by the relationships, traditions, and shared experiences that bring people together year after year.

Although the festival no longer takes place in the same form, the photographs remain as a record of a remarkable period in the life of the community—a time when thousands gathered to celebrate local culture, local traditions, and one another.

For me, it remains one of the clearest examples of why I love documenting community life: because behind every event is a human story worth remembering.