François Brunelle: I'm Not A Look Alike
ⒸFrançois Brunelle/ Agnes Loonstra-Ester Scholten
Written by Aaron Norton
Copy Edited By Hillary Mitchell
Have you ever been told you have an uncanny resemblance to someone else? Examples can include a celebrity or an unrelated person walking down the street. Perhaps it’s just the lighting or a certain angle the person caught you at.
It’s also a possibility that you have a doppelganger; a biologically unrelated look-alike double of a living person. Because it’s a rare coincidence, being a doppelganger is seen as a paranormal phenomenon. Nonetheless, finding your own doppelganger is a truly interesting experience to say the least.
Canadian photographer François Brunelle began an international search for these look-alikes twenty-three years ago, and ever since, his mission has been to document and photograph as many doppelgangers as possible.What culminates from all those years of hard work and dedication is a project titled I’m Not a Look-Alike, a stunning expose on identity, relationships and what it truly means to be a doppelganger.
There’s something refreshing about Brunelle’s series of black-and-white portraits. Besides the subjects themselves, nothing is out of the ordinary about the portraits. It’s a relatively minimal set up – a white background, black and white negative film and the doppelgangers found by Brunelle from around the world. With this, the portraits are both startling and eye-catching. Although you can see certain minute details that don’t quite add up in terms of resemblance, the people in the photographs look incredibly similar for the most part.
What’s truly gripping about these portraits is the time and effort it took to create them. After searching for these doppelgangers for over two decades, Brunelle has amassed a massive collection spanning over 250 look-alikes from over 30 cities around the world. It’s a project that’s not only time consuming, but it also tests the will of the artist and the artist’s subject; in order to create the portrait, there has to be a certain level of trust built up amongst everyone who’s involved. With his experience as a photographer mixed with his determination, Brunelle has accomplished exactly what he’s set out to do – for a very long time.
ⒸFrançois Brunelle/ Pedro lópez Soto - Kaotico Albert Pueyo
After such a long time documenting this specific topic, what’s next for the Canadian photographer? Brunelle is currently working on publishing a book including the photographs he’s taken, and he’s hoping to open a variety of exhibitions where his work can be seen by the masses. For people that are so difficult to find, François Brunelle has made it look effortless and fascinating.
François Brunelle is a Canadian photographer based in Montreal, Canada. Including his 23-year-old project, I’m Not a Look-Alike, Brunelle is also an author after having published his book titled, The 7 Essential Tools for the Creative Photographer. For more information on François Brunelle’s work, upcoming exhibitions and projects, please visit his website: www.francoisbrunelle.com/webn/
Instagram: francoisbrunelle.doubles
Photo Editor: Chris Zarcadoolas
