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François Brunelle: Quebec photographer snaps portraits of unrelated people who appear identical

They say that everyone has a doppelgänger, but one Quebec artist is making a pretty compelling case that the maxim might be true.

François Brunelle takes photographic portraits of strangers that look so similar they could be identical twins, reports the CBC. The black and white images feature pairs of nearly identical people posed together in matching clothing.

Dubbed, "I am not a look-alike!", Brunelle says the project is essentially about the idea that two people completely unrelated to each other and perhaps even born in different countries might share the nearly exact same physical appearance.

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"It is not about looking like famous people," writes Brunelle. "The project is about looking like other people."

Brunelle started with people he knew and that lived in his hometown of Montreal, but now uses social media to connect look-alikes, and pairs often come to him after finding each other independent of him.

His work has drawn media attention in the past — the project has appeared in the Toronto Star, EnRoute magazine, and on CBC as far back as 2006 — but it's only now that the internet is sitting up and taking notice.

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In the last 24 hours, Brunelle's photos have appeared on news websites in Vietnam, New Zealand, Italy, England, Holland and many other countries around the world.

Many photographers have taken on twins as a subject for a portrait series, but Brunelle is the first to catch the public's attention that is focusing specifically on look-alikes. The images are also artistically quite compelling — Brunelle is no slouch behind the camera. It's likely that with all the international attention his project is now getting, there will be a few more sets of doppelgängers headed his way.