There are people who continue to live within us even when they are no longer present: our mother, father, a sibling, a partner, or a close friend. Someone we loved deeply. Even someone with whom we had a difficult relationship.
We can close our eyes and remember their face, the way they looked at us, a particular gesture, a phrase they used to say, or the way they walked. But what we carry within us is not exactly that person—it is a representation. An image shaped by memories, emotions, experiences, needs, desires, fears, and also by everything we may never have fully understood.
Psychology has a particularly beautiful word for some of these inner images: imago.
In Latin, imago means “image”, which may be why the concept feels especially evocative when we think about photography.
The concept of imago is closely linked to Carl Gustav Jung’s analytical psychology. An imago is the psychological representation, largely unconscious, that we build of someone who has played a significant role in our lives.
The imago is not the person; it is our inner representation of them.
There is my real mother, with her own story, her strengths, her struggles and her contradictions. And then there is the mother I carry within me. The two may resemble each other closely—or they may not.
Our experience of another person is never shaped solely by what they did. It is also influenced by how we experienced those events, how old we were, what we needed, what we were able to understand at the time, and the emotions that became attached to those experiences. This is why two siblings can grow up with the same parents and yet develop very different psychological representations of them.
We could express it like this:
REAL PERSON → EXPERIENCES → EMOTIONS → INTERPRETATIONS → IMAGO
The person exists outside us; the imago emerges within us.
The most significant imagos are usually formed around our earliest emotional bonds: our mother, father, siblings, and other important people during childhood.
Imagine a little girl whose mother is going through a difficult period in her life for several years and is often preoccupied. The child is unlikely to think, My mother is going through a difficult time, which is why she is less emotionally available. Her experience is much simpler: When I need her, she isn’t there.
When certain experiences are repeated, they can contribute to the formation of an inner representation of relationships and of the people in them. We do not retain the events themselves—we retain the emotional meaning they had for us.
These representations can continue to shape our lives many years later, even when circumstances have changed.
This is precisely what Jung observed in many of his patients: mothers and fathers who had been absent for years—or had even passed away—continued to have a powerful presence in their psychological lives.
Some behaviours were driven not by the real father, but by the internalised image of the father.
This is why Jung considered it essential to distinguish between the real person and their imago.
We do not remember like a camera does
Unfortunately, our memory does not work like a photographic archive.
When we remember, we do not retrieve an untouched copy of what happened. Memory is reconstructive. Every time we recall an experience, elements from the present come into play: our current understanding, our emotions, the stories we have built about ourselves, and everything that happened afterwards.
This means that our imago is not an exact reproduction of a person either. It is a psychological construction.
It may contain real elements, but also interpretations, idealisations, disappointments, expectations, fantasies, and the meanings we have gradually attached to it over time.
A person may have died twenty years ago, yet our psychological relationship with them can continue to evolve. The person no longer changes, but we do. And that personal growth can also transform the way we understand their story.
Let us make an important distinction.
A memory might be: My father used to take me to school every morning.
An imago is something deeper and more complex. It is the psychological representation I have built of “my father” through hundreds or even thousands of experiences. Within it, protection, authority, fear, admiration, absence, tenderness, high expectations, security, and disappointment can all coexist.
This is why an imago is not simply a mental photograph. It is an inner structure through which we feel, interpret and relate to that person in the present.
Here we find one of the most fascinating psychological implications of the concept: our imagos can influence the way we interpret other people.
Imagine someone who, throughout childhood, repeatedly experienced that the people who mattered most were unavailable whenever they needed them.
Years later, they send a message to their partner. Several hours pass without a reply. The objective fact is simply: They haven’t replied yet. But internally, something much more intense may arise: I’m not important. I can’t trust anyone. Whenever I need someone, they disappear.
The intensity of the emotion does not necessarily come only from what is happening in the present. The present can reactivate something from the past.
Different schools of psychology have used different concepts to explain a similar phenomenon: our earlier experiences help shape the way we interpret later ones. This brings us close to psychological concepts such as transference, projection, cognitive schemas, and internal working models of relationships.
We never enter a relationship as a blank slate. Our inner camera already holds images that resonate with what we experience. We arrive carrying our own history. We see others through the lens of ourselves.
Without even realising it, we may expect someone to behave in the same way that another person did many years ago.
What does all this have to do with photography?
A photograph is also an image of someone, but it is not that person. It is an image of a person, not the person themselves. It is a visual representation of them at a particular moment in time.
And when we look at that photograph, we do not see only what it objectively contains. We see it through the lens of our own history, our memories, our relationship with that person, and our imago.
A photograph can awaken an inner representation that has remained outside our conscious awareness for years. Perhaps this is why family photographs have such an extraordinary ability to spark conversations.
Looking at the same image, one person might say, “Mum looked so happy that summer.”
And their sibling might reply, “I remember perfectly well that she was angry that day.”
The photograph is the same. The personal history from which each person views it is not.
There is a wonderful story about photography that seems to speak directly to the concept of imago.
After his mother’s death, Roland Barthes began searching for her among old photographs. He was not simply looking for a photograph in which her face appeared. He was searching for something far more elusive: he wanted to recognise her.
He found photographs that objectively showed his mother, yet he felt that the woman in them was not fully the mother he had known. Then he came across a photograph taken in 1898.
His mother was about five years old and was pictured with her brother in a winter garden. In that little girl, Barthes recognised the mother he had known all his life. Of course, he did not recognise her physical appearance, but he found in that image something essential about who she was. Her kindness—”the kindness which had formed her immediately and forever”—seemed to radiate from the photograph.
That photograph became the emotional centre of Camera Lucida. Yet Barthes chose not to publish it in the book, because he understood that, for the reader, it would simply be an old photograph of a little girl. For him, it was his mother, together with everything she awakened within him.
© Odette England – Retrieved from : https://www.odetteengland.com/new-page-1
We can distinguish between three different things:
The person who exists.
The image of that person that we carry within us.
The photograph we have before us.
The person, the imago, and the photograph. Three related, yet distinct, realities.
A family photograph may show our father smiling. But what we remember may be the profound sense of protection, belonging or love we experienced.
The photograph records an appearance. We bring the experience.
Here lies one of the most fascinating possibilities of using photography as a tool for self-knowledge.
Exploring an imago does not necessarily mean discovering whether our inner representation is “true” or “false”. Rather, it means recognising that we always look from a particular place—that our way of seeing is shaped by the experiences we have lived, the emotions we have felt, and the meanings we have given them. Understanding where we are looking from can open the door to greater awareness and the freedom to choose whether to reinterpret, strengthen or let go of certain memories.
Is There an Imago of Ourselves?
If we construct psychological images of the important people in our lives, we also construct representations of ourselves.
At this point, it is important not to confuse the Jungian concept of imago with contemporary psychological concepts such as self-image, self-concept, narrative identity, or self-schemas.
Yet the question that emerges is a fascinating one: Who is the person in the photograph? Can I recognise myself?
And this is where the self-portrait enters the picture.
When someone stands in front of the camera, they are not simply photographing their body or their face. They may also encounter the distance between:
who I am,
who I believe I am,
who I used to be,
who others believe I am,
and who I am trying to become.
Perhaps this is why some self-portraits feel so unfamiliar. We recognise ourselves physically, yet we think: That isn’t me. I don’t see myself.
Or the exact opposite happens. An imperfect, blurred or seemingly insignificant photograph immediately sparks a sense of recognition: That’s it. That’s me.
An Image Is Never Just an Image
The concept of imago reminds us of something that is especially important to us at ANDANA: looking is never a neutral act.
Whenever we look at a photograph, we also look through the lens of our own life story, our relationships, our losses, and everything we long for or fear.
Perhaps this is why some photographs hold immense meaning for us while meaning nothing at all to someone else.
The photograph exists outside us, but the image lives within.
And perhaps getting to know ourselves a little better also means learning to recognise the imagos through which we see the world.
If you would like to explore this subject further, I invite you to discover these three experiences:
This course includes all the necessary tools to lead photography workshops for children and youth, including theoretical and practical content, inspiration, and activities.
A Photography-Based Online Workshop on Self-Discovery and Self-Knowledge.
An auditory and visual experience designed to train your visual literacy and photographic expression through the practice of self-portraiture.
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