Are you interested in photography but don’t know where to start? Monmouth University has many adjunct professors that tend to go unnoticed but make a significant difference in students’ lives and careers. Marisa Sottos is one of many adjunct professors in the Department of Art and Design that particularly teaches photography classes. Along with teaching at Monmouth, she also teaches at Yeshiva University, Middlesex College, and Berkeley College.
This semester, Sottos is teaching Digital Photography I and Lighting Techniques. Digital Photography I is a foundational course that introduces students to the aesthetic, historic, and technical aspects of photography through various lectures and hands-on projects. Meanwhile, Lighting Techniques is a studio course that studies studio lighting as it applies to fine art and commercial photography.
“It is my first semester teaching Lighting Techniques, but it has been really inspiring and fun!” Sottos said. “I would have to say I do love teaching Darkroom and History of Photo. The analog processes and thrill of the origins of photography are what drive many of my assignments and inspiration for my own artwork.”
While some enter the profession with an end goal of teaching, that wasn’t always the plan for Sottos. She graduated from Monmouth in 2013 and loved being a student here in the art department herself.
According to Sottos, she returned to the Department of Art and Design to teach because it just felt right considering her prior positive experience at Monmouth. “What I knew was I wanted to inspire others, no matter what career path I ended up in. I was naturally drawn to art and more specifically photography because of how it is seamlessly woven in our everyday lives. It’s extremely inspiring to help students expand their artistic vision, technical skill, and use photography in their own lives,” she said.
Like many other professors, Sottos strives to make the most outside the classroom. Sottos explained, “I am a visual artist outside of the classroom – In addition to my own work, I organize collaborative group shows and publications. I have a part-time commercial photography practice photographing portraits of musicians and other creative professionals.”
Along with conducting her own personal practice, Sottos takes on many other hobbies that students might not know about. In fact, she has traveled to the other side of the world over ten times and sings opera. Sottos noted that her students should be prepared to explore, see the world in new ways, and have fun.
Students in her Digital Photography I class in Summer 2022 traveled around Monmouth County, visiting Asbury Park, Ocean Grove, Red Bank, and Sandy Hook.
Cisco Tejeras, a junior animation student, took Photography I with Sottos in Fall of 2021. He mentions that prior to taking her course, he did not have an interest in photography whatsoever. He simply had to take the class as a requirement for his animation major, but claimed that the class enlightened him to the art of photography as a whole.
“She was able to show us how to build upon our knowledge of composition and color, and make the natural world which is usually plain look deliberately interesting. Catching moments in time that inspire you to look deeper into the world around you. All this while learning the history of photography, and learning how to use cameras properly,” said Tejeras.
Tejeras continued, “Truthfully what I liked the most about Marisa Sottos and her class was just how real it was. A lot of professors can get too tied up in trying to be superficially academic. But Marisa had a way of making teaching something I wasn’t interested in at all, incredibly fun and inspiring. If it weren’t for my current pursuit in animation as a degree, Marisa may very well have convinced me to become a photographer myself by the end of the fall semester of 2021.”
For anyone in the Monmouth community interested in seeing Sottos’ personal work, you can visit her Instagram (@marisasottos) or her personal website (www.marisasottos.net).
