My job is to create stories through images. My camera and Photoshop are my biggest allies
"My job is to create stories through images. My camera and Photoshop are my biggest allies. Photography has been my best friend and passion since I was a teenager. I never thought that what I enjoy doing most in my life could became my way of life. Until now. I can say that I dedicate myself to photography with all the passion that I have, because I cannot live without it, and it would be very difficult for me to be happy without a camera in my hands.I like the hard surface of the panels and use several thin layers of paint to create my hyper-realistic paintings
"All of my paintings are done with acrylic paints on wood panels. I like the hard surface of the panels, and to create my hyper-realistic paintings, I use several thin layers of paint. I also use a combination of Golden and Liquitex brands of acrylic paints and very small brushes I put a lot of pressure on my brushes so they don't stay stiff for very long, I can spend anywhere from two weeks to a month on one painting, depending on the size and details.Canadian photographer Francois Brunel came up with an interesting project called “I’m Not Like It.”
He is engaged in looking for similar people and making portraits.
Over the course of 4 years, the photographer’s arsenal totaled 140 pairs.
At first, people he knew who were similar to each other were suggested to him by his acquaintances, then he traveled specifically, peering into their faces. And when the project became famous, thousands of letters came to its website. And although there he asked people who already knew their doubles to respond, photos came from “lonely” people. “They asked to find a double for them. I leafed through these letters and memorized each face in case I saw the same one again somewhere,” said Francois Brunel.
Brunel's doubles are similar only at first glance - and this is one of the photographer's goals: not to look for absolutely identical people, but to see his personality in each of them. That’s why he even called the project “I’m not look-alike,” and a black and white photo helps achieve this goal: “The viewer is not distracted by the color of eyes, skin or hair - and my heroes don’t have them.” always the same. He sees only the essence of man. You know, it's interesting to watch people when they look into their own eyes. Some of the characters, meeting in my studio, instantly become friends and continue to communicate,” noted the photographer.
Canadians Nina Say and Anna Rubin are friends of one of Francois' daughters. Both are artists and were born on the same day. The girls even thought that they were separated twins, but their parents deny this.
“Someone knew me before me, for example, Marcel Stepanov and Ludovic Mellard. They are executive producers on one of the Parisian television channels and were always mistaken for brothers. But it was funny until Marcel’s girlfriend kissed him and realized that it was Louis.” There were other interesting cases during the project: once Francois found a double for a meteorologist he knew, and he turned out to be his amateur colleague. And his two “twins” went on dates with the same man at different times.
When Francois first invited Edith Prefontaine and Stephanie Tremblay to his place, they looked like twins: they dressed the same, smiled the same and even wore the same frames.
Victoria Stusyak participated in Brunel's project. Her match was found in Poland - in the person of the artist Alexandra Bartosik: “Alex and I did not know each other before Francois’s workshop,” recalls Victoria. - And, looking at each other, they didn’t understand: how are we actually alike? Both our nose and eyebrows are different! For example, it seemed to me that she looked like my friend, who, like Alex, has Polish roots. But for sure, I thought, all the participants in the “I’m Different” project are just as blind as I am. They don't see what others see. In general, the idea to film us was given to Francois by his friend, who knew both me and Alex. So the photographer, seeing us, immediately said: “The only thing you have in common is that you are both beautiful.” Well, that’s it, I thought, Francois probably won’t use us. But he turned on the light, we felt something in each other - and the characters began to play. I liked the idea itself - it makes you think: you are not alone, this reduces selfishness.”
03/19/2013 | CreatingSister | 13,647
Canadian photographer Francois Brunelle has been searching for "". This photo project is called “I’m not look-alike”.
It already features 140 pairs of “twins” who are not even members of the same family. Brunel's doubles are not actually exact copies of each other. After all, the project is called “I’m not like that.”
Black and white photographs amazingly emphasize both the incredible similarity of people and the individuality of their personalities. The photographer believes that it is the technique of black and white photography that allows one to most accurately concentrate attention on the essence of a person, and not be distracted by analyzing the exact match of shades of hair, eye skin, etc. Francois Brunel says that it is very interesting to watch the reaction of a person who meets his double for the first time. However, external similarity most often attracts people to each other - many of his “models” became friends, barely looking at each other, and continue to maintain constant communication.
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People who are externally similar to each other are not uncommon; everyone has encountered someone similar to themselves, sometimes more than once. But doubles are a rarer phenomenon. But, as it turned out, finding your copy is not so difficult. In any case, the French photographer Francois Brunel proves this in practice, taking joint photographs of doubles for several years.
Actually, Brunel himself is like two peas in a pod like the famous comedian Rowan Atkinson, the same Mr. Bean. Acquaintances and strangers alike were tormented by this “news” of Brunel year after year.
At first he laughed it off, but one day he thought about it and decided to make an unusual photo project out of it.
Since then, Francois Brunel has been traveling and peering into people's faces, and also accepts applications for participation in the project through his website. As a result, today his collection includes almost one and a half hundred doubles. Moreover, these are not externally exact copies of famous people, but simple, but very similar people who can be photographed together, even if they have not met before.
By the way, as Brunel noted, unfamiliar doubles usually instantly find a common language, common interests and even, at times, commonalities in their biography (for example, two girls found out that they dated the same man at different times).
François Brunel called his project “I’m not look alike,” and this has a lot of meaning. The fact is that in fact, doubles can only be confused one by one. They are really very similar, but if you photograph them together, you can see how many differences there are between them. This is precisely what became the idea of the whole project - to show that doubles are not clones of each other, but different people with their own characters, habits and destinies.
However, there are, to some extent, exceptions: for example, among Brunel’s photographs there is a photograph of Edith Prefontaine and Stephanie Trembley. They are not sisters, and did not even know each other, but they are still similar to each other, like twins. Moreover, both girls, without saying a word, came to Brunel’s workshop dressed almost identically and wearing the same glasses!
And yet the main value of the project is not to show the similarities and differences of people. And the point is for people themselves to look at themselves in a new way: after all, the realization that your “copy” is walking around somewhere makes you look at yourself from the outside. And this is, perhaps, more important than any perception of art.
