This is the first in a series of episodes focusing on the state of photography education, in conjunction with Red River Paper. Red River Paper’s EDU program helps photography students by providing high quality photo papers to photography programs around the US.

Once a quarter I will chose a photography student from one of the Red River Paper EDU partner schools to be a guest on the Behind the Shot podcast, with the help of Red River Paper, their professors and their instructors. With each of these education episodes we will also do a limited time social media based giveaway of 10 Red River Paper Sample packs, with one of those winners will also receiving a 13×19 print of the student’s image from that show. This contest has been completed and is now closed. Details on the contest, and a list of winners, can be found here.

Santa Monica College’s Photography program is one if the Red River Paper EDU schools, so to kick this series off I asked my recent guest Josh Sanseri, who is the photography professor and program chair of that program, to help chose a student.

World, meet Karl Erik Vasslag. Karl Erik, meet the world.

Karl Erik is only 21, and at 18 he packed up and moved from Norway to Los Angeles to study photography at Santa Monica College. That speaks to his drive and passion about photography, and also speaks to the quality of the program.

In looking through Karl Erik’s images to chose a shot for the show I was honestly surprised. I wouldn’t have guessed he was still a student. I would have assumed he was a working pro. Karl Erik clearly has an eye, that part of photography that some might argue can’t be taught, or at least is hard to teach. His images all have a story, and have a richness of style and color.

Karl Erik says that while he is not normally a beach person that it is his favorite place when he has his photography hat on. A place to live in the moment and just think about photography. With a portfolio of landscapes, portraits, and fashion images shot both on location and in the studio I would suggest that he is well on his way to becoming a great photographer.

On this episode of Behind the Shot join photographer Karl Erik Vasslag and me as we breakdown his wonderful seaside portrait of Norway – with a replica of Noah’s Arc replica in there for fun.

Personal: karlerikvasslag.com

Photography Program: SMC.edu

Premium Photo Paper Catalog: redrivercatalog.com