Curren Caples Week Day 5: Acosta's Angles

The relationship between a skater and his photographer and filmer is a unique one and it can make or break a career. Many times the best tricks have been discounted because of shitty angles, with no fault to the skater. At Vans we’re lucky to have two of the best in the business in filmer Greg Hunt and photographer Anthony Acosta helping us show you all the great skating our guys are doing for this upcoming Vans video.
For the final day of Curren Caples Week we dug through Anthony Acosta's archives for some of his favorite photos of Curren through the years and Anthony's stories behind them.




This was one of the first times Geoff brought Curren to skate with me because we needed a Vans ad and this was his first, introduction Vans ad. This is a gap out of the fullpipe to front wallride drop straight down. We skated this fullpipe in the Inland Empire, Geoff and all the Flip dudes came out. This was pretty gnarly. Since this was my first time skating with him I didn’t know much about the dude I just knew he was a bowl rider-type dude but he came out and was a rad little kid. Usually I’m pretty leery when little kids come around because they’re either hot shots or know-it-alls or just plain and awkward but he was just a cool, normal kid and I was psyched on it. He looks so young at this time. Even now he looks like he’s 14 but he’s, like, 22. [Curren is actually 16.] I think he was 11 or 12 when this was taken. This was a tight little fullpipe; way smaller than Baldy or any of the other ones but you can see he was doing frontside ollies and going over-vert to get to that frontside wallride. I was pretty amazed. And he did the front wallride three or four times, no grab out, nothing, straight to the floor. I remember he wanted to go higher and higher and I think he was aiming for the top of the graffiti line and that’s the one he actually made right there and the one we used for his ad. I remember I was psyched because he kept pushing himself. He didn’t just land one, he kept going, “I need to land a better one, I need to go higher.”
I always liked the part where it says ‘Shane Cross, Rest in Peace.’ Geoff snuck that in there before he landed one of these last tries.
I don’t know too much about how they found Curren but Flip just has this keenness for finding new dudes. They found Louie [Lopez] and David [Gonzales] and Bastein [Salabanzi]; They know what they're looking for. It’s something you can’t learn. You need some special ability to see the future in some dude and have the balls to invest in him. Flip is willing to take the risk and it usually pays off because they know. I know Geoff really backed this dude from the beginning so I’d give Geoff credit for bringing him around. He probably got him on Vans.


This is Bondi Beach; the Huntington Beach of Australia. I’ve been to Australia twice and this is the only place I’ve ever seen in Australia. I just get a hotel at the beach and shoot the bowl for a week, every day. I don’t know anything different so I just think Australia is 100% like Huntington Beach, where the bros go to the beach and just chill and drink and show off their tats.
It’s sick though that they have this bowl contest on the beach every year and everyone goes because the vibe is just insane; you have hot chicks everywhere with the rad bowl scene.
This is the second year Curren was there. It’s funny because he just shows up to the bowl and he is literally a crowd gatherer. The natural ability of this dude just draws a crowd. They see this little blonde kid, mini-Tony Hawk, and everybody just gathers. I remember getting here and it was almost dark and I was like, “Oh, let’s try to shoot something.” There were a couple people skating but the session was pretty much dead but by the time the kid got going you can see all the people in the background that gathered around when they saw me with the flash. It’s funny, I think he’s learning how to deal with the crowds better but he’s a normal little kid. I wouldn’t have expected it. I was expecting him to be real mature about it but he’s like, “Ok, let’s get out of here.” I think he gets a little shy, which I think is rad because it shows he’s still a normal, little kid. He’s not cool guy yet. But he definitely gathers crowds. And there are usually girls and every time girls are around him it’s pretty funny because he’s always the cute kid. We were on this Flip trip in Sacramento at the Outback Steakhouse after a signing and there were these sisters sitting across from us, full rap video-style and they just kept coming over and talking to Curren. They were in their mid-twenties and he was so shy! He was practically ignoring them like a little kid would do. My three-yea-old does that when he doesn’t know people, he practically ignores them; Curren was doing the same thing to the chicks. It was so funny. They were like, “He’s like a little Barbie doll,” and touching his hair. He needs to figure it out. I’m sure he will and he’ll be like Sheckler, slaying them all.
I always liked that photo, nighttime-style shot, the shadow, classic form.


I wanted to lie that he’s an avid photographer. A film purist. He always has Leicas and Contax and all that good stuff and that was just one of them he brought with him but actually he just took that out of my bag and started using my camera. But he is pretty good at Instagram (Curren’s Instagram is Curren_Caples)
He always has some pretty funny photos. So he kinda wants to be a photographer.


That’s the Little Kid Crew right there. Look at the big ole 12-year-old on the right, Langi, it’s funny I think Curren is older than Langi. Louie is probably 28 by now, right? He looks the exact same. [Louie is actually 17.] That’s the future right there. Just a bunch of little dudes of tomorrow.
Curren and Langi is a weird dynamic. When we went on that Flip trip it was funny because they all pick on Langi. It’s almost like the little birds messing with the crow. Curren and Louie are just picking on Langi the whole time and it’s funny because Langi is two feet taller but he still takes it to the heart and is easy to mess with. He’ll be like, Dude…you got me.” And little Curren, four-foot-tall, laughing. Curren likes to mess with people. He has that little Ventura flare to him. I think it’s a Ventura thing because he hangs out with Mike Anderson’s brother, Jake, and he’s the same way. And even if you know Mike Anderson, he’s a little sassy at times. But that’s a good thing; that’s what makes them rad.


California child, the golden boy. I don’t know what else needs to be said. I think his appeal is that California, surfer boy, tan, skater. I thought that photo embodies his whole vibe. Honestly, I’ve never encountered a kid that was more California. Maybe Tosh Townsend when he was 14 but this kid you could see the California appeal.


Phoenix Am trip; this was the skatepark outside our hotel that we found just skating to the liquor store. That’s Elijah in the background about to boardslide up that rail. We were just outside dorking around before it got dark and we found this spot the locals built and I had my camera with me so he got a cool hurricane photo. A big tranny dog on a 1-foot quarterpipe.
I think he did well at the contest that year but I don’t think he’s really a contest skater. I don’t think he even knows what kind of skater he is yet. I’ve been skating with him a bunch recently and I’ve been trying to figure it out. He’s not a contest skater, he’s not the bowl dude, he’s not a street dude but he does it all. I feel like when he figures out what avenue he really wants to take it down it will be on. When he goes in contests he’ll rip it but I feel like he’s not even really trying. He’s just skating like he would in a session. He’s not there to win, he’s just skating. Maybe he hasn’t tasted that first place money yet. Maybe he needs to win that to realize that it’s pretty cool. I believe he could win it, I know he could if he really wanted to.


This kid is a total natural tranny skater. If you saw him skate tranny firsthand you’d be blown away. This kickflip off the vert ramp to the hip, he did that no pads, no helmet, with ease. He does full vert runs, frontside airs, tailslides and then he’ll do that. Like I said he’s a natural tranny skater but I’ve also seen him kill street; he’s got it either way. I think he can do it all if he wanted to. I’m working on a New Jack for The Skateboard Mag with him and it’s well rounded. But we have been skating a lot of rails recently. But I’m trying to make it to show his ability. I think he has to grow into it a little more to know where he wants to go.


This is a Flip trip in Langi’s zone, the Redwood City Park. Langi kills it. Every time you go there Langi’s whole family is there, his mom, his sister, everyone is skating. Langi kills every section going 100mph. This is right before it started raining and everyone got some tricks in and had a good time. I love shooting photos of Curren because he makes everything seem huge. Maybe that’s what Geoff figured out! You get these small dudes and it makes the rails and gaps look extremely big. It helps because if this were Langi doing a blunt fakie his head would be half off the frame. It would look like a 6-footer instead of an 11-footer. That’s the secret to success. I don’t know what I’m going to do when Curren gets tall. I guess I’ll be shooting more long lens.


We were just dorking around a couple weeks ago skating on Wilshire in LA. We all pulled over and got coffee at The Coffee Bean in the background and Cody Green, Curren and Jake all started shredding so I just popped some photos off. This is the old Death Row Records building on San Vicente. We skated this spot after we got kicked out of the Larry Flynt Building where Big Brother Magazine used to be. There’s a brick tranny thing on the side and Curren was trying to get a line and we kept getting kicked out. It was on a Sunday so we thought it would be mellow. We tried talking to the security guard about Big Brother, telling him it was a skateboard magazine and he was like, “Nah, man. Only pornos here.” But he was telling us how he’s seen some of the porn stars go in and he was all psyched. Dirty old man.
We skated down the road to this spot and as we’re skating him and Cody snuck back without out us to get the line and they got it.


Curren is always on the next phenomenon. Planking is hot, he was planking. He’s always got the newest, hottest YouTube video, like, “Hey, check this out.” He’s always got the newest app, it’s pretty funny. He’s on it when it comes to pop culture. This is just a photo of him planking when planking was something cool. Planking? Everyone is going to look at that in 20 years and be like, “What was that about?”


It’s funny skating with him because I feel like he doesn’t know how good he is. We’ll show up to a spot and he’ll be like, “Dude, I can’t skate this thing.” And I tell him he could, that I’ve seen him skate stuff similar. It’ll take his friend Jake to boardslide the rail, for example, then Curren will boardslide it. Then Jake will grind it and then Curren will grind it and then five minutes later he’s frontblunting it, noseblunting, nosegrinding it, all first try. And he’ll be like, “I didn’t think I could skate that.” That happens all the time. And this photo is an example of him not wanting to skate a rail, thinking he couldn’t do anything on it. He smith grinded it, literally, 40 times in a row. This is in Compton and in case you didn’t know it’s predominantly African-America so when they see a little blonde guy going down the stairs you will gather a crowd. We had a crowd of 40-year-old African-American women behind us cheering him on. They were like, “You so cute!” They’re into him, Dill-style. He should talk to Jason Dill to get some advice.


We were skating the Combi Bowl and we were trying to shoot photos init but he didn’t want to wear pads and you have to at least wear a helmet at least, that’s just the policy. So every time we’d set up we’d take his helmet off and we’d get yelled at. Every time! They were watching us. It was Sunday night at 11pm and they were about to close but we ended up getting a couple photo where he had the helmet off and this is just one of the outtakes of him probably not going fast enough so he’ll just throw a slob air for you, that’s Curren’s humorous side for you.
This weekend is the Pro-Tec Pool Party at the Combi and I don’t know how he’ll do. That’s a contest for the contest hungry and those dudes just come out of the woodwork for their chance to shine so they’re trying 540s on every corner but I think if he really wanted to he could be there training and probably get Top 10 for sure, but he doesn’t treat contests that serious. We just went there one day and we were dorking around, that’s what he likes. He just likes to have a good time skating, that’s the skateboarder in him; he’s there to have fun skating not to win, win, win and I don’t think that’s a bad thing.