Miles Aldridge

Early Life

Miles Aldridge was born in London in 1964, to eminent graphic designer Alan Aldridge. He was gifted his father’s Nikon F when he was 10 years old. Aldridge went on to study illustration and graphic design at Central Saint Martin’s College. After graduating, he worked briefly as both an illustrator and music video director – before moving towards photography in the early 1990s.

Photographic Career

Aldridge moved to New York where his first commercial work was for American monthly fashion magazine W. His photographs quickly became a regular feature in international publications, including American Vogue, The New Yorker and The New York Times. Aldridge formed a particularly strong artistic partnership with Franca Sozzani, the editor-in-chief of Italian Vogue throughout the 1990s, and produced many of his most memorable and striking images for the magazine. He has worked with numerous fashion designers throughout his career including Yves Saint Laurent and Karl Lagerfeld.

His work is noted for its vibrant colour, elaborately styled set design and a strong sense of cinematic narrative. His photographs are concerned with the surreal, and in the mixing of the mundane with glamour and eroticism. He has stated “Alfred Hitchcock’s ability to make ordinary things seem very strange and sinister – a bedtime table, hairbrush or bunch of flowers – has been a key influence. Whether it’s making beautiful things look ugly, or very normal things look strange, my aim is to create photographs that stop the viewer from turning the page of the magazine at a time when images are so casually thrown away.”

Exhibitions & Awards

Aldridge has published several books including Pictures for Photographs (2009), Other Pictures (2012), and I Only Want You to Love Me (2013). A major retrospective of Aldridge’s drawings and photographs was held in 2013 at Somerset House, London. In 2014 he was invited by Tate Britain to create a temporary installation entitled Carousel II, as a response to Mark Gertler’s 1916 painting Merry-go-Round.

Aldridge’s work is held in the collections of the National Portrait Gallery, London; the Victoria and Albert Museum, London and the International Centre of Photography, New York.