The Double Photography

A press photo of the actors Marie Bonnevie and Michael Persbrandt taken right after their stage performance in the August Stindberg play Miss Julie is the point of departure. This particular photograph triggered a strange sensation in the author: it was as if the play’s characters were still present in the actor’s faces, even though they had left the stage. The essay discusses this phenomenon and relates it to the work of Dutch photographer Rineke Dijkstra and the Danish artist Kristina Steinbock. Dijkstra in particular has explored this problem artistically, that is, occasions in which facial expressions linger and seem to belong to another situation. The essay asks where to place this phenomenon. Does it occur in the picture, the context, the spectator?