A question about "himself" and other anaphors

In your writing (1~4 sample sentences) you have completely omitted (left out) the subscript marks. Without the subscript marks, you are not conveying the original author's meaning.
They have made a small [i] subscript mark next to the male name with the himself[i] (male anaphor/cataphor, the male pronoun). For non-native English speakers reading the text, they might not instinctively know that "John" is usually a male name and takes the pronoun "himself." Similarly, they would not know that "Mary" is usually a female name and takes the pronoun "herself." Therefore they have included a subscript mark [i] next to the male name/male anaphor (and later next to the female name/female anaphor).

It is very inconvenient to type (subscript) in Reddit comments, so I will use (superscript)[i] instead:

1. It is difficult for John[i] ~for Mary~ to talk about pictures of himself[i].

2. It is difficult ~for John~ for Mary[i] to talk about pictures of herself[i].

3. Pictures of himself[i] are difficult for John[i] ~for Mary~ to talk about.

4. Pictures of herself[i] are difficult ~for John~ for Mary[i] to talk about.

The (superscript)[i] is matching the male name (John)[i] with the male anaphor/cataphor/pronoun (himself)[i].
The (superscript)[i] is matching the female name (Mary)[i] with the female anaphor/cataphor/pronoun (herself)[i].
1. himself = anaphor
2. herself = anaphor
3. himself = cataphor
4. herself = cataphor

To answer your original question, all of these examples sound equally acceptable. They are all grammatically correct and sound equally natural. I would probably use the 1. 2. pattern more often because the name (John/Mary) comes first and would be easier for a non-native English speaker to follow. However, there is nothing wrong with the 3. 4. pattern at all.

/r/grammar Thread