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Nick Rozsa, Buccaneer Beach, Oceanside

Y’heard of Azealia Banks? She was an unknown rapper from Harlem who put a music video on YouTube. It’s had over 10 million views and now she plays Coachella and private parties for Karl Lagerfield. So, y’might say she’s an overnight YouTube star.

Nick Rozsa, pictured here, is an overnight Vimeo star in the world of surf. A little while back, a series of digital shorts titled Homegrown, created by Chris Papaleo and starring Nick, were released through Vimeo. Collectively, the series has had 130k views (not including the most recent episode, or the hits on Surfline). Comparatively, and within the surfing world, that’s a lot for someone who was relatively unknown beforehand. And Nick’s now the name on everyone’s lips.

Ask the majority of Stab‘s forum denizens and they’ll tell you that Nick’s the most underrated surfer in the world. And, he’s also a philanthropist! Kinda. The day y’see pictured here happened to be Earth Day, and Reef (Nick’s main sponsor) had decided to use the day to clean the local beach. “The Reef offices shut their doors for the day and made everyone come down to clean the beach,” says Blake Kueny, who shot this. “It was a pretty cool day to give back. Nick definitely lives up to all the hype of his videos. This was the first time I’d seen him surf in person and he was ripping the shit out of these two foot waves.”

Photographer profile

Blake Kueny

Blake Vincent Kueny is a freshly-20 Californian. Vista, if we’re talking deets. Y’ever heard of Justin Jay, or Cole Barash? Those are the cats that spin Blake’s wheels. He may shoot a sharp-as-hell frame, but Mr Kueny’s real game is cutting the motion footage he shoots (which is usually of Jordy Smith). During the course of his work with Jordy, Blake fired-off the shot he calls his favourite ever: A portrait of Jords with new finger tattoo. Jords also makes it onto Blake’s favourite surfer list, along with John Florence and ‘Riss Moore (though he hates picking). Blake’s never been ripped off by the industry he loves and, he says while touching wood, he’s never waited long for payment. Although, while he loves the surf game, the biggest cheque he’s ever been cut came from shooting a gal for a Swedish teen celeb title. Nine hundred bones for a 20 minute shoot ain’t too tough.

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