I’m not a look-alike! is a collection of photographic portraits of look-alikes. Each image consists of a couple of people photographed next to one another in a neutral setting. They are two people who resemble each other physically but are not related to one another in any way. Have we not all had the experience of being mistaken for someone else?
For this project Brunelle has searched for look-alikes, bringing them face to face, and taking their portrait. From this initial meeting, which is usually the first time each participant has encountered someone who they could be confused with, a photo results which captures a certain emotion or state of being, and a similarity that is fascinating. The photographs in this project address the fundamental ideas of resemblance and identity. The images in this series also touch on the current issue of cloning.
160 pairs of look-alikes have been photographed to date by François Brunelle. In some cases, one participant is Canadian and the other look-alike comes from Europe, South America, or even Russia. Most thought provoking is when the look-alikes are of different nationalities.
François Brunelle was born in 1950 in Sherbrooke, Québec. At the age of fifteen, he discovered the works of André de Dienes and Richard Avedon. His fascination, even obsession with portrait photography has led him to devote his life’s work to taking portraits of the people around him in an ongoing effort to capture the elusive human soul. François Brunelle lives and works in Montréal.
Brunelle’s project has benefited from worldwide interest, and has been mentioned in more then 300 blogs in French, English, Spanish, German, Turkish, Russian, Korean and Japanese.
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