In 1994, I started going to Birdman events at West Sussex seaside towns like Bognor and Worthing. People would launch themselves off piers strapped into homemade contraptions – often in fancy dress – and try to fly. After my first visit, the photo agency I worked with sold the images all around the world. I thought: “Wow, that’s quite a result – I’ll do it again next year.” It was always a nice drive there and a chance to have fish and chips. I eventually started going with the family and we spent half the day on the beach. Sometimes I got a picture, sometimes I didn’t.
At first, I would try to note down who the competitors were that I photographed – until I asked one dressed as a dinosaur and he said: “Terry Dactyl.” We had a very entertaining chat, but I thought: “That’s it. I’m not going to ask any more names or where you come from or anything.” Consequently, I don’t know who the guy in this image is. There was metalwork involved in the horse, or dragon, or whatever it was, and it was on wheels. He started out riding on top of it like a knight in shining armour.
What I like about these pictures is that these are English eccentrics hoping to fly – with all the connotations of Icarus – and the joke is that they only go down, not out. At one stage, if you could go 100 metres before falling into the sea, you could win up to £30,000. So these hang-glider guys would turn up with devices to measure wind speed. I captured one of them after a hopeful launch, and another nosediving within seconds. Then, in 2009, one guy went nearly 100 metres and tried to sue the organisers, saying they measured his distance wrong. He didn’t win.
There was an array of bird costumes, of course. You’d see hats with propellers attached, while one guy tried to get a lift by holding massive bunches of helium balloons. It wasn’t all men: there were some very brave women, too. Many contenders are raising money for charity – and it’s quite a height they jump from. I’ve seen people seriously winded. There’s a boat to collect them from the water.
Some of my other series have been similarly surreal or absurd, like my Chelsea Flower Show one. It’s about that very gentle kind of English eccentricity and the idea of escapism, where you can express your character in some strange way. My series on smokers, meanwhile, started because I was coming into London one day and I could see these people standing around outside buildings. I thought there’d been a fire, but then I noticed they were all smoking. The workplace ban had just come in. When it rained, people would shuffle into little doorways and they all looked a bit dodgy, like dope smokers, or as if they were at school sneaking a fag.
I worked as a photojournalist for newspapers until the early 90s before I got involved in advertising. Because it was a lot better funded than journalism, I was able to photograph things just for myself, too, using an old Rolleiflex camera. I’ve been able to take a break in recent years. It all works differently now. People get a lot of work on Instagram and I’m trying to get involved with that. I’ve had my stuff in various strange books, and then last year I got a call about making a Birdmen book – my first monograph.
I wouldn’t rule out a return to a Birdman event. I read that someone was trying to organise a Bognor one this year. I always said that, if I ever got a book published, I’d throw myself off the pier. I’ve cancelled that idea now.
• Dod Miller’s Birdmen photographs are at Messums Wiltshire, 16-31 July. Birdmen is published by Plague Press.
Dod Miller’s CV
Born: Norwich 1960, but grew up in the former USSR.
Trained: At a local paper, the Hastings Observer, after my A-levels.
Influences: Claude Monet, Don McCullin, Henri Cartier-Bresson and Alexander Rodchenko.
High point: “Having the Birdmen book published and having a show at Messums.”
Low point: “Soon after I started taking pictures, I went partially blind in my left eye. It was quite disturbing, but after a while the parts that are still working compensate.”
Top tip: “Don’t open the camera while the film is still in there.”
