They look like twins, but they're not!

Brunelle has traveled across North America and Europe photographing people who look very much like but are not related. In some cases one participant is Canadian and the other look-alike comes from Europe, South America, or Russia.

“When I find two look-alikes, I bring them together in my portrait studio,” Brunelle said. “This initial meeting is usually the first time each participant has encountered someone whom they could be confused with, and results in a photo which captures a certain emotion or state of being, and a startling visual similarity. The photographs in this project address the fundamental ideas of resemblance and identity. Have we not all had the experience of being mistaken for someone else?”

Brunelle says the photo pairs are most thought-provoking when the real life dopplegangers are of different nationalities. He has photographed 160 pairs of look-alikes to date. His project has benefited from worldwide interest, and has been mentioned in more then 300 websites and blogs in French, English, Spanish, German, Turkish, Russian, Korean and Japanese.

“I am fascinated—one might say obsessed—with portrait photography and I have devoted my life’s work to taking portraits of the people around me in an ongoing effort to capture the elusive human soul,” Brunelle said.

People can see examples of look-alike portraits and suggest new ones at FrancoisBrunelle.com.

The Eleanor London Côte Saint-Luc Public Library is located at 5851 Cavendish Blvd. and is open from 10am to 10pm every day. For more information, call the library at 514-485-6900 or visit www.elcslpl.org.