{"meta":{"version":"2.1","_links":{"self":{"href":"https://api.vam.ac.uk/v2/object/O1601073"},"collection_page":{"href":"https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O1601073/"}},"images":null,"see_also":null},"record":{"systemNumber":"O1601073","accessionNumber":"PH.420-2021","objectType":"Photograph","titles":[{"title":"I Only Want You to Love Me #1","type":"assigned by artist"}],"summaryDescription":"Miles Aldridge is a British fashion photographer and son of the famous art director Alan Aldridge. He studied at Central Saint Martins, making music videos and working as an illustrator before becoming a photographer. His fashion photographs have frequently appeared in the pages of Vogue, W Magazine, The New York Times, GQ, Numéro and The Face. Aldridge has also worked as an advertising photographer for brands such as Yves Saint Laurent, Paul Smith, Karl Lagerfeld and Giorgio Armani. His celebrated portraits have captured famous sitters including Donatella Versace, Riz Ahmed and Viola Davis. \r\n\r\nAldridge remains one of the few fashion photographers shooting predominantly on film, but uses digital post-production techniques for highly glossy, polished results. His meticulous process for creating a fashion picture always begins with him sketching and drawing his ideas. His photographs are characterised by vibrant acid tones and he draws much of his inspiration from the work of the 1930s photographers who specialised in the Vivex colour process such as Madame Yevonde and Walter Bird.\r\n\r\nAldridge creates alluring and surreal atmospheres. His fashion pictures illustrate strange worlds with saturated colours in what he calls ‘movie-based narratives’. By creating elaborate and cinematic tableaus, Aldridge plays with the conventions of photography and highlights the tensions between illusion and reality. His pictures blend references to film noir, art history and popular culture with an often disturbing and cynical dark humour twist that he ‘sugarcoats in these bright colours’. \r\n\r\nAldridge’s sitters are often women, depicted in glamourised versions of the domestic realm. He imbues images of the everyday with the absurd and aligns exhausted stereotypes of women’s roles with the exaggerated and artificial.\r\n\r\nAldridge purposefully touches on such themes to critique idealised notions of domestic bliss where, for him, sinister undercurrents always lurk beneath flawless surfaces. \r\nHe has said of his approach: ‘If the world were pretty enough, I’d shoot on location all the time. But the world is just not being designed with aesthetics as a priority. So I prefer to rebuild it instead of photographing the real one. What I’m trying to do is take something from real life and reconstruct it in a cinematic way … That’s why an hour and a half of an Antonioni movie is so much more interesting to me than an hour and a half of real life. Because it’s condensed emotion, condensed colour, condensed light.’\r\n","physicalDescription":"Fashion photograph in colour of woman wearing yellow ensemble crouched on a checkered yellow and pink floor surrounded by smashed crockery and food. ","artistMakerPerson":[{"name":{"text":"Miles Aldridge","id":"C8077"},"association":{"text":"photographer","id":"x43821"},"note":""}],"artistMakerOrganisations":[],"artistMakerPeople":[],"materials":[],"techniques":[],"materialsAndTechniques":"Chromogenic print","categories":[{"text":"Fashion","id":"THES48957"},{"text":"Photographs","id":"THES48910"},{"text":"Food vessels & Tableware","id":"THES48952"}],"styles":[],"collectionCode":{"text":"DOP","id":"THES291628"},"images":[],"imageResolution":"low","galleryLocations":[{"current":{"text":"LVLF","id":"THES49656"},"free":"","case":"DR","shelf":"56","box":""}],"partTypes":[[{"text":"Photograph","id":"AAT46300"}]],"contentWarnings":[{"apprise":"","note":""}],"placesOfOrigin":[],"productionDates":[{"date":{"text":"2011","earliest":"2011-01-01","latest":"2011-12-31"},"association":{"text":"","id":""},"note":""}],"associatedObjects":[],"creditLine":"Given by Miles Aldridge","dimensions":[{"dimension":"Height","value":"52.5","unit":"cm","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"","note":""},{"dimension":"Width","value":"76","unit":"cm","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"","note":""}],"dimensionsNote":"","marksAndInscriptions":[{"content":"","inscriber":{"name":{"text":"","id":""},"association":{"text":"","id":""}},"date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"description":"","interpretation":"","language":"","medium":"","method":"","position":"","script":"","translation":"","transliteration":"","type":"","note":""}],"objectHistory":"Edition of 10 + 2 APs","historicalContext":"","briefDescription":"Photograph 'I Only Want You to Love Me #1', 2011 by Miles Aldridge ","bibliographicReferences":[],"production":"","productionType":{"text":"","id":""},"contentDescription":"","contentPlaces":[],"associatedPlaces":[],"contentPerson":[],"associatedPerson":[],"contentOrganisations":[],"associatedOrganisations":[],"contentPeople":[],"associatedPeople":[],"contentEvents":[],"associatedEvents":[],"contentOthers":[],"contentConcepts":[],"contentLiteraryRefs":[],"galleryLabels":[],"partNumbers":["PH.420-2021"],"accessionNumberNum":"420","accessionNumberPrefix":"PH","accessionYear":2021,"otherNumbers":[],"copyNumber":"","aspects":["WHOLE"],"assets":[],"recordModificationDate":"2025-04-09","recordCreationDate":"2021-03-26","availableToBook":false}}