I will never forget March 13th, 2010. It was cold, really cold…water in the low 40s, wind chill in the 20s. I had Oliver Kurtz staying with me, a pro surfer from Florida. We’d just started shooting together a month or two before and had good luck so I called him a few days before this swell and told him to fly up cause the forecast was looking good. He had never surfed in cold water, so it took some convincing to get him up here in 5/4/3, booties, gloves and hood. He flew up the next day. The first day of the swell was a bust. We did the usual Outer Banks surf check fail, checking every spot from Kitty Hawk to Rodanthe and back without even surfing. The surf was too big and the winds weren’t cooperating anyway. We just crossed our fingers and hoped for the best the following morning. The next day (the 13th) we drove straight to Rodanthe to find overhead perfect peaky surf with noone out. We couldn’t believe how good it was and immediately paddled out. It was even better when we got out there. The swell was predominately from the south, so most of the waves were rights. Oliver and a handful of others got wave after wave for about an hour or so. I noticed there would occasionally be a left that would come in about 50 yards north. Oliver is a goofy foot, and I’d rather have a photo of him riding frontside in a barrel instead of backside. So, I yelled to Oliver to paddle over and try this left. After about 10 minutes, this mutant came in. I couldn’t believe when I saw the wave hitting the sandbar. I just knew it was a crazy one. It’s an amazing feeling as a water photographer when you can feel all the elements coming together. Can’t really explain it. Oliver just barely made the drop, pulled in, and boom. With the housing I was using I couldn’t view the photos in the water so I had to wait until I got out to see if we got anything. I opened up my housing on my way to lunch, pushed play, and started scanning through the photos from the session. The second I saw this one on my camera I freaked. I remember screaming in my truck I was so happy. When I got to the restaurant I told Oliver he wasn’t gonna believe the photo. It ran as a full spread in Surfer Magazine and in Surf Europe Magazine. I shot from the beach all afternoon and got another full spread in Surfer Magazine from the beach. There were never any more than a handful of guys out all day and it was one of the best days of surf I’ve ever seen anywhere in the world.
Tags: Photos, Surf by admin
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