Valérie Belin has the enthusiasm of someone who has found a new family. She can't wait! She can't wait to wear the habit, she can't wait for Wednesdays, she can't wait to be part of a group and join in the debate. The visual photographer has long nurtured this desire for the Académie. So we're not waiting for the Elysée to approve her election before inviting her to join her five "acolytes". On January 24, Laurent Petigirard, Perpetual Secretary of the Académie des Beaux-Arts, made the announcement during his vœux 2024: Valérie Belin, elected a few hours earlier, will occupy chair VI in the Photography section. The next day our phone rang, and within a week we were meeting her at her Paris home for a time-suspended plunge into her monographs. Photo by photo, series by series, from bodybuilders to fruit baskets, from motors to super models, from potato chip packets to her latest Lady Stardust... We won't leave without seeing them all, and it's a gift she's giving us. As well as returning to the pages of PHOTO a few months after appearing on its cover (#556), and introducing us to Tereza Zelenkova. Of course we love it, like everything else Valérie Belin touches. From April 26, a major retrospective of her work will be held at the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Bordeaux, and from May 16 to 19, she will be guest of honor at PhotoLondon, the fair that voted her "Master of Photography 2024". Soon, she'll be sitting alongside Yann Arthus-Bertrand, Jean Gaumy, Sebastião Salgado, Dominique Issermann and Françoise Huguier - because it's official, she's become immortal!