INTERVIEW: MILES ALDRIDGE talks to FILEP MOTWARY

Dear iDEALS, Miles Aldridge’s images depict a stupendously glossy and magnetically vibrant world with ultra slick, hyper-lit models and signature acid tones. Standing out among contemporary fashion and figurative photography for its luminous composition and for the mysterious situations he has created, these aspects of his practice both derive and simultaneously depart from the work of artists which Hamiltons has represented over the decades, including Horst, Penn and Avedon. Cinematic expression marks Aldridge’s work and it is not surprising therefore that his dreamlike, erotic style has drawn comparisons with the work of Bergman, Dali, David Lynch, Hitchcock and Godard amongst others. His contribution to some of the world’s most important fashion bibles and the warm support he has by Franca Sozzani was my motive for our following conversation.


FilepMotwary: This April you are realising a book and a big exhibition is opening revealing your works. Would you like to share more details? What does it mean to you reaching this point of career, being a part of what we call international fashion?
Miles Aldridge: Steidl 7L are publishing “Pictures for Photographs”- A book of my photographs and the working drawings behind them. Hamiltons Gallery in London is presenting a solo show- “Doll Face”. April 2 – May 10. Both the book and the exhibition are ways of drawing a line under the work so far. Seeing the images on a gallery wall or in a book gives the work distance for me which is good as I have been very close to all this stuff for a long time.


FilepMotwary: You could have chosen any other kind of photography, yet, fashion is what you decided.. Why? What’s about fashion that excites you so much?
MilesAldridge:  I never planned to be a fashion photographer. The opportunity was given to me through a series of accidental meetings…a girlfriend who wanted to be a model asked me to take some snaps of her. These were put in her portfolio and when she showed them to Vogue I was asked to bring in my portfolio. Of course I didn’t have a portfolio but I was good at talking so I bluffed my way in. Once I was in a studio I became excited by the possibilities I loved the process of imagining a picture and bringing it to life. I was amazed that when I looked thru my camera and asked the model to open her mouth she obeyed. For the first 2 years all the models in my pictures stare back at the camera with their mouths gently parted.


FilepMotwary: From all the magazines you collaborate with I want to ask you about Vogue Italia. Since they have a very specific pattern of work and also, in a way, have a strict policy on sticking with the same collaborators? How does Italian Vogue work for you? How different it is compared to other magazines?
Miles Aldridge: Without Italian Vogue my work wouldn’t exist. It is Franca Sozzani’s vision that has year after year allowed me to develop my ideas, encouraged my single-mindedness, while at the same time giving me an education in the history of beauty and style. We meet each season in Paris. I bring sketches with my ideas… and she is always able to find a link between these ideas and what is on the runway.


FilepMotwary:How do you work with your “subjects” each time? What is the procedure you follow to give at the end the results we all know?
MilesAldridge: When I am working on a picture I often have a preconceived idea that I have sketched out. The drawing is a starting point but often I see something in the model that is more interesting and I go after that instead. After setting up the basic idea of the picture you have to imagine that you are seeing it for the first time and approach the image in an almost reportage way…finding the angle that best shows the action. Capturing the story you are reporting on in the most visually economical way. I realised that I have to be able to forget the drawings and see the model as a girl in the middle of her story. Living in her story now.

FilepMotwary: Do you feel part of a creative generation that helps the fashion industry go round?
MilesAldridge: Yes, the group of photographers that started out when I did were linked by a desire to change what we saw around ourselves. In many ways culture was more visual then. Magazines had more power without the competition of the internet. There was an excitement about new imagery. A picture in The Face or Vogue Italia could be like a rallying cry. It was the end of all that decadence, the supermodels and ugly clothes. The magazines were powerful and we used them to broadcast our various messages of grunge, glamour or weirdness.

FilepMotwary: How do you decide the people who work with you each time? How do you choose your team and what teamwork means to you?
MilesAldridge: I try to work with talented people and stick with the good ones. I use the same colour printer that I first met 15 years ago. Alice Ghendrih did make up for some of my first Vogue Italia shoots..I knew instantly she was special. We have done lots of long nights work together. Throwing colours over girl’s faces.


FilepMotwary: How do you respond on criticism? Good or bad? What are you looking for when someone criticizes your work, in your presence? Are you selfish about what you do? Does it make you feel fragile?
MilesAldridge:  I seek critic from people I trust. They can help you find the best in your work. Often I am too close to the work and need a fresh eye on it. As far as producing work you have to be Selfish …you just have to be. You are scrutinising every aspect of the picture to make it the work. To make it exciting and in the end you have to push for your point of view. Could fashion compete with more conceptual photography.

FilepMotwary: What’s fashion photography’s real power in your opinion? Is there a difference now?
MilesAldridge: So many art photographers take fashion pictures and many fashion photographers have exhibitions in galleries. I believe it is all conceptual. The idea that a fashion photograph is just a record of a dress is no longer true. I have always believed that ideas/concepts are what define artists not the technique. It used to be that each photographer had their own technique; secret formulas for processing their film and secret lighting ideas. But since digital arrived there are no secrets anymore…everyone effectively shoots I the same way…ideas are all we have to say we are different from the next guy.


FilepMotwary: Do you ever go to fashion shows? Any designer whose work you feel as an extension of what you do and vice versa? Maybe even not a designer, any other creative individual. How do clothes help your work?
MilesAldridge: I never approach my images from the point of view of a fashion collection. I am excited about ideas not clothes I used to love going to fashion shows. There was something surreal about all that undressing. Drinking champagne and undressing…and then going onto another show and seeing the same girls undressing again. With Kristen I went to a million shows, being a model-boyfriend - that is less fun.

FilepMotwary: I feel there is something specifically British about what you do. What did you take in particular from growing up in the UK and also being the son of Alan Aldridge?
MilesAldridge: I made up of my teenage years… as a punk in Camden town. Playing guitar in a rockabilly band, learning how to draw at the Tate, swimming on Hampstead heath, the mystery of Soho…


FilepMotwary: How did you experience your father’s talent and fame as a child? There was a portrait of you both during his retrospective at the London’s Design Museum, I was quite touched. MilesAldridge: I remember as a boy sitting on my father’s lap as he drew pictures of giant insects and smoked cigars. I always thought my dad had the best job…all my friends had dad’’s that wore suits and hats to work.
My Dad wore orange tweed suits with blue monkey boots and wore his hair long. I loved hanging out in his studio, There were always interesting people coming in and out; the Beatles, Eric Clapton, Cream, Elton John. I still don’t know how my father learnt to draw like that…coming from Romford during the war it is really a mystery.
 
FilepMotwary: By observing other people’s works can somehow lead to a blossom of a new talented individual. Who were your icons at a younger age and why?
MilesAldridge:  David Lynch. Fellini, Hitchcock….they still are. Please allow me to go a bit more personal. Tell me about Kristen. You are married to a real tiger with which you have four children. How do you manage to keep the balance between the family, your role as a father, husband and a world known photographer? She is an amazing beauty…I love her. I travel a lot for work and she keeps the kids entertained, she understands the business I am in and this is a great support.

FilepMotwary: Do you keep archives of your work, unrevealed photographs? How does it feel when a photograph gets rejected from being in a magazine?
MilesAldridge: I photograph all the time for myself. These pictures may be published one day but they are personal images that I take because I need to concentrate my eye. They are like eye training. As far as rejection…it hasn’t happened lately..

FilepMotwary: What do you think of a man’s own past and how important it is for his future?
MilesAldridge: My past is important to me…a lot of ideas start there. Songs, movies, girlfriends, family…bad Christmas’…all of it is useful. Women have a great importance in your photographs.

FilepMotwary: One can see their solitude and wisdom. In a way you see inside and out of them. How do you direct your heroines each time? Can you share your thoughts on womanhood?
MilesAldridge: I try to make them look like the people I see everyday on buses, in the street, in cafes…lost in their private worlds. The centre of their own fiction they have created about themselves. I see this everyday. In every city I visit. A blankness that signifies deep thought real life.

FilepMotwary: This spring, Lagerfeld’s L7 is publishing a monograph of your works. What is the aim behind this book?
MilesAldridge: To show the drawings behind the photographs. I showed Karl some of my sketch books and he told me to meet his friend Gerhard Steidl…so I came to the Chanel couture show at the Grand Palais with a suitcase full of sketchbooks and between the 2 shows Karl, Gerhard and me came up with the format for the book. The drawings show the thought process. They also show my obsessions…


FilepMotwary: How does a book or an exhibition help you.
MilesAldridge: It brings a focus to what I have been doing for the last 15 years. When you decide to have a show or make a book you are really saying that all this is finished now…I want to move to the next stage of my work. It is a way of unloading your past.

FilepMotwary: Miles, how do you think the economic crisis, if there is one, affect you?
MilesAldridge: I don’t need money to be excited …I get more excitement from a car park wall painted bright orange than I do from any pay check. How do you define “Fashion Photography”?

FilepMotwary: Is there a line between shooting something more personal like the High Def Heist image photo for example? Where do you draw the line?
MilesAldridge: It is all personal - The entire editorial has to be your own world - otherwise it is boring


FilepMotwary: What do you feel most proud for and why?
Miles Aldridge: Surviving fashion…15 years

Note: The interview came out this morning as part of the May 2009 issue of L'Officiel Greece. Interview under copyrights. All photographs copyrights by Miles Aldridge.

Comments

[Carl Starling]

Brilliant interview...don't know why I haven't visited your blog for ages. I'm definately keeping up now!

BTW - your comments aren't working with internet explorer - not sure why!

[kendall]

oh this just got me so excited for the book!
=) adore

[AL.W]

"MILES OF MILES"
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STADIUMAGAZINE[C]

[Annie markantonatou]

so interesting post!