Young French Photographer Sees Double

Julie de Waroquier is a young (age 23) French photographer and student of philosophy who lives in Lyon.  I came across a recent project of hers called Les Faux-Semblants (the Twins Project) and found the images surreal, strange, beautiful and fun. De Waroquier uses Photoshop and Gimp to manipulate the photos, giving them their dreamy, other-worldly feel. 

''Twins have always fascinated me,'' Julie says, ''and not only because I have a twin brother: they are almost magic and yet they are real. The fact that two people look exactly the same...is astonishing. It's like a real dream or like a miracle.  In some past or present civilizations, twins are even considered as Gods...or as monsters.''

Julie's twins project won the Emergent Artist Award in France in 2012; you can see all the photos and read more about the project here. And you can see Julie's other work here. (To contact Julie directly, email her: jdewaroquier@gmail.com)

The photos reminded me--and many other people I'm sure--of Diane Arbus' famous 1967 photo Indentical Twins, which you can read all about here. If you want to see how yet another photographer explores the idea of twins, click here. And how about some people who look alike but aren't related at all? Check that out here.

And what's Julie working on now? It's a project about strangers, she says, ''a series depicting humans and animals meeting each other. I want to create stories that intertwine wildlife nature and human imagination.''

Photos (click to enlarge): A few of Julie's twins photos;  a pretty butterfly shot from another series of hers; and the famous ''Arbus twins'' (Cathleen and Colleen Wade), at age 7 in homemade dresses...and now.  

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