Senior Sofia Vias Mastering Transformative Photography

Sofia Vias is using photography not just to capture faces, but to reimagine them. As part of her AP 2-D Art and Design portfolio, Sofia has developed a body of work centered on portraiture that goes beyond traditional representation.

Instead of presenting straightforward images, Ms. Vias photographs her subjects and then reconstructs those portraits into layered, altered, and visually complex pieces that challenge how identity is seen and understood.

AP 2-D Art and Design, commonly known as AP 2D, is a College Board course that asks students to create a cohesive portfolio focused on investigation, experimentation, and personal voice. Rather than producing random assignments, students develop a sustained inquiry — a theme or question they explore through multiple works. The course emphasizes technical skill, composition, and concept, pushing students to think like working artists while documenting their creative decision-making.

The senior has been working closely with Huntington photography teacher Pamela Piffard for several years. Ms. Vias’ skills have grown by leaps and bounds during this time.

For Ms. Vias, that inquiry revolves around transformation. She begins with carefully lit and composed portraits, then manipulates them through processes such as layering, distortion, fragmentation, and mixed media approaches. Facial features may be repeated, shifted, obscured, or combined with textures and graphic elements. The result is work that feels both familiar and unsettled — recognizable as a person yet reconstructed into something emotionally expressive and symbolic. Her pieces explore how people present themselves outwardly versus what they experience internally.

Her teacher, Mrs. Piffard, sees this approach as a strong example of what AP 2D encourages. “Sofia takes a traditional subject — portraiture — and pushes it into new territory,” Mrs. Piffard explains. “She’s not just showing what someone looks like. She’s exploring identity, emotion, and perception, and she’s willing to take creative risks to do it.”

That willingness to experiment is central to Sofia’s growth. Each piece builds on the last, showing increasing confidence in both technical control and conceptual depth. Through reconstruction, she demonstrates that a portrait does not have to be a fixed image, exactly the kind of thoughtful, process-driven work AP 2-D Art and Design is designed to inspire.