A portrait is not a representation of an individual in his objective reality, or, as we often read, the ‘revelation of his true, most intimate essence’. Photography does not capture the ‘essence’ of an individual, it does not ‘steal his soul’, it does not represent in the ‘most authentic way’ a personality because the Ego is, by definition, multiple. There is nothing less identical to itself than identity. For these reasons, it would be completely erroneous to apply the irreconcilable dichotomy between being and appearing, or between εἶδος and εἴδωλον, to the understanding of the relationship of circu- larity, of mutual e¤ectuality, which links the image to identity. To put it in Jacques Lacan’s words, image and identity never cease to constitute each other.