Pictures must not be too picturesque.

Long before selfies became popular in social media, I and many other members of Flickr, the largest photosharing community at that time, experimented with the longstanding tradition in photography of creating self-portraits. A popular but technically challenging genre was the “clones” self-portrait, which are multiple exposures merged together in Photoshop so that several versions of oneself appear together in the picture. Because I often used photography to illustrate concepts in psychology, I decided to create one to depict Freud's tripartite model of the psyche. Wearing a black shirt, with fists clenched tight, the id version of me stares angrily at the superego version of me, wearing a white shirt, looking complacently self-righteous, with a finger raised in the air. In between them sat the ego-me, wearing a gray shirt, with his hands calmly spread outward, as if trying to make peace between the two antagonists. I thought it was a rather humorous conceptual image, but little did I know that it would rapidly receive widespread attention as one of the most popular photos in Flickr, in fact becoming one of my signature pieces. I was also surprised to see how much it resonated with people, as evident by comments such as these:

Freud isn't dead. He is very much with us just like Newton.

So which one usually gets the better of you?

I hate to think of 3 versions of me – the mind boggles at what each of me would be doing and thinking.

I think we're all Freudians – it's one of those belief systems that no one can get out of their minds once it's learned, like being an ex-Catholic or an ex–Chicago Cubs fan.

The battles within the mind you've so expertly portrayed are something everyone experiences every day.

I've seen this image in my head waaaay to many times. Thanks for visualizing it for me:)

By the way, what is the true me?

And the soul is free of all three.