Picturing ourselves

As Linda Haverty Rugg persuasively shows, photography's double take on self-image mirrors the concerns of autobiographers, who see the self as simultaneously divided (in observing/being) and unified by the autobiographical act. Rugg tracks photography's impact on the formation of self-image through the study of four literary autobiographers. Obsessed with self-image, Mark Twain and August Strindberg attempted (unsuccessfully) to integrate photographs into their autobiographies. While Twain encouraged photographers, he was wary of potential fakery. Strindberg, believing that photographs had…