Miles Aldridge in conversation with Francis Hodgson

Miles Aldridge, the distinguished fashion photographer and artist is interviewed by Francis Hodgson, Professor in the Culture of Photography at the University of Brighton, the photography critic of the Financial Times and the former Head of the photographs department at Sotheby’s.

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Miles Aldridge was born in 1964 in London, where he lives and works. He studied illustration at the prestigious Central Saint Martins College of Art & Design, and briefly worked as a music video director, before becoming a fashion photographer in the mid-1990s. Son of Alan Aldridge, a famed psychedelic album-cover graphic designer, Aldridge’s work is immensely vivid and glamorous with a strong cinematic touch, encompassing many diverse influences from film directors including Derek Jarman, David Lynch and Fellini, to the styled elegance of photographers such as Richard Avedon. Staged to perfection the stars of Aldridge’s surrealistic stories and technicolour dream-like worlds are glamorous, beautiful women. Their immaculate appearance and blank expression leave room for interpretation and, like a mirror for Aldridge’s works at large, hint with a touch of dark humour at the perfected façade of fashion’s glamour and the need for idealised beauty. Moreover, his works are characterized by vivid, fluorescent colours as well as the Hollywood lighting and perfectionist attention to detail. Aldridge is frequently published in internationally well-known magazines such as Vogue Italia, The New Yorker, TIME, Numéro and the New York Times, while his works are part of renowned museum collections, such as the National Portrait Gallery in London, the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, and the International Center of Photography in New York.

Francis Hodgson is Professor in the Culture of Photography at the University of Brighton, England. He has worked for lots of photographic businesses. For many years, Hodgson was the photography critic of the Financial Times and also head of the photographs department at Sotheby’s. Hodgson is one of the founders of the Prix Pictet and an art adviser specialising in fine photographs. He advises on many aspects of collections (public and private) and occasionally helps photographers to market their work and act as a consultant to various image-centred businesses such as stock libraries.