As the month of September comes to a close today and our celebration of Veronique Branquinho’s A#6, we leave you with Serge Leblon – the last male figure whom Veronique chose for her ‘Compliments to Beautiful Men’. Serge is a Belgian photographer whose career began not in the studio but as a news photographer on the front line, covering the war in Lebanon. Perhaps this grounding has contributed to the aesthetic of his images, with a depth of field and soft nuances of focus that lends a gritty romance, however harsh or commonplace the subject may be.

Included with Serge’s portrait by Arnaud Pyvka are his image ‘L’Avion’ of the snub nose of an aeroplane discretely concealed at an airport, and ‘La Main’, a poised female hand with red varnished nails grasping a metal bar [i see her travelling on a bus]. Besides this story, Serge has contributed the beautiful editorial  ”The Owls Are Not What They Seem”, the David Lynch inspired title signifying a masked fashion story, with model Kim Peers appearing nude beneath Veronique’s spectacular outerwear pieces and an array of exotic masks.

SERGE ON HER: voluptuous, sophisticated, evocative, liberated, rock’n'roll.

VERONIQUE ON HIM: instinctive, poetic, inspired, attentive, french movies.

Veronique Branquinho is an intensely interesting and interested woman, whose passions lie far afield from the closed circuit world of fashion. As a young woman she was a collector, as described by Oscar Van Den Boogard in the seminal opening text to A#6, ‘Moi, Veronique’, and has continued this trait – as not only a collector of knick knacks and tidbits, but a collector of friends, memories and experiences. One of her passions is vintage cars and driving them, and in A#6 this has been illustrated by a collage of vintage sports cars, and beautifully captured in the image by Serge Leblon entitled ‘Queen of the Road’ pictured above. The collage contains an image from the Steve McQueen film ‘Bullitt’ from 1968, and below you can see a clip from it’s famous car chase scene. Enjoy!

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-7IEPTAoTg[/youtube]