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Contacting interfaces provide frictional damping in jointed structures subjected to high dynamic loads. Predicting this frictional damping during vibration cycles is highly important since it strongly affects the dynamic response of the assembly and hence the lifetime of parts. Since frictional damping is heavily influenced by the contact condition at the interface, the most direct and insightful approach is thereby to actively monitor the contact interface. Although several methods have already been proposed to monitor the contact interfaces quasi-statically or in pre-sliding, such as digital image correlation, X-Ray and ultrasound, only limited data is available of the frictional interface behaviour during high frequency vibration. To provide a better insight into the contact interface behaviour during high frequency cyclic motion, an optical method is here developed based on transparent friction specimens and total internal reflection, and applied to an existing friction test rig. The resulting measurements across the whole interface show a large variation in the real area of contact during each vibration cycle, which could be linked to the kinematics of the contact interface. This large variation is observed for the first time in high frequency oscillating contacts and is attributed to ageing effect and fracture of asperities. These two effects dominate the contact mechanism at different sliding velocities and induce variations in the real area of contact during each vibration cycle. These results suggest that the mechanisms behind high frequency contact behaviour are more complex than what commonly assumed in dynamics simulations.