Picturing Ourselves

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 occult power, preferred to photograph himself. Because of their experiences under National Socialism, Walter Benjamin and Christa Wolf feared the dangerously objectifying power of photographs and omitted them from their autobiographical writings.