doppelganger (n.)
Wraith. literally: double-goer. Apparition of a living person, 1826 (from 1824 as a German word in English).
– OED
We are more alike than many of us hope. Photographer François Brunelle has spent years tracking down real-life doppelgängers — people who are not related but could pass for identical twins — and photographing them. He calls his project “I’m Not a Look-Alike”.
“I looked honestly at my photos at the beginning of the project and thought they were quite ordinary. I told myself, though: these images are kind of boring and un-sexy, but if there is one person, only one, in the world who will like my images as much as I do, then I will be happy. I was doing these photos to please something authentic in myself, not caring so much about what people would think.”
– François Brunelle
“The face is the ultimate communication tool that we have to establish and maintain relationships between us as human beings. No wonder we are drawn to the face,.”
– Brunelle
“I am not sure how many people stayed in contact after the photo sessions,” she tells Feature Shoot. “But I know for certain that one of the pairs did. One of them was a TV personality, and the other one was often mistaken for the other and asked for autographs. When they met for the first time in front of my camera, they realized that their spouses had the same first name, and they both had a son of the same age. So they started to go out together.”
“Of course, the look-alikes are not the same. They look-alike, not much more. But then, that’s what fascinates me. That someone, out in this world is looking at himself in the mirror and seeing more or less the same thing that I am seeing in my own mirror. Which brings us down to the question: Who am I exactly? Am I what I see in my reflection or something else that cannot be defined and is invisible to the eyes, even my own?”
– Francois Brunelle
You can follow him on Instagram at @francoisbrunelle.doubles.
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