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Oliver Kurtz, backside ferris, Big Sur, San Francisco

Ever since Ryan Call’s backside huck last year (Lost Atlas, Blow Up), the upside-down full rote has become an instant hit. Here, we find Oliver Kurtz, 21, the sporting prodigy (tennis, golf and surfing) from Vera Beach, Florida, with his own version of the Callinan huck.

Photographer Tom Carey – who was on the road trip that yielded this sequence, as well as the Indo trip with Callinan – said it trumped Ryan’s, although we do beg to differ even if this excites us very much.

“Oliver was complaining about his knee but then he stomped this massive thing. This one was even more crazy than Callinan’s in Indo. Later that weekend, Oliver had a pretty mental encounter in a nightclub in San Fran. You gotta ask him about it.”

And so we did. Oliver responded thus: “I don’t remember anything. I woke up, I’m looking at my phone and I’d texted Dylan (Perillo) that I’d hooked up with a chick. Normally, it’s one of those moments when you wake up after being drunk and memories gradually seep through. I have no recollection. I totally don’t know what happened.

Ninety per cent I got roofied (drink spiked with date-rape drug Rohypnol). I got back to the hotel before everyone and I assume I got there in a cab but I checked my credit card and there were no charges. What’s going on? I have no idea.”

Says Tom: “He’s a fucking funny kid that makes life and boring times more enjoyable. He also dresses like one of Hitler’s Youth.”

Peter Taras, the photographer of this sequence, is equally thrilled by his presence and fashion from that belle epoch. “Oliver’s style is straight out of Nazi Germany, 1936. Black Doc Martins, an old, worn peacoat, black dress shirt underneath. It’s funny. At the hotel we stayed at people thought he was the devil. Pale complexion, dark clothes.”

And that ain’t all. “So many of these kids are such pussies on photo shoots. They surf for five minutes, come to the beach and cry about how the waves suck. Oliver will just stay out as long as possible until he gets the shot.”

If instruction is possible for such a turn, Oliver says: “You gotta come up to the lip way more vertical than you usually would and you gotta flick your tail so hard – it’s like trying a rodeo. If something goes wrong, you look like the biggest idiot. Make it and you’re the biggest hero. It’s either the sickest thing anyone’s ever seen or the worst air anyone’s ever seen.”

Photographer profile

Peter Taras

After 34 years of life, Pete Taras still feels that his favourite photo is the one he’s gonna shoot tomorrow. When a young Peter saw a Waimea shorebreak photo in 1984, his innocent perception of the gurgling truck made him wanna become a surfer. “Those are the type of photos that are my favourites,” he says. “Inspirational images that change the way you think or act.” Peter misses the work of Ron Stoner, Art Brewer and Warren Bolster who, to him, are three of the best. But, as far as contemporary influences go, Peter spends hours scrolling through blogs, Tumblrs and magazines, often not even looking at who shot the photo but rather losing himself in the image itself. And, as far as what Mr Taras regards as good photography? “Anything that is virgin. Meaning, anything that has never been done before. In this world, those moments are few and far between.”

More photos from Peter Taras