Travel is a strange thing. I still don't think I've quite come to terms with it yet. One day I'm surrounded by the familiar objects and people of my usual daily life, then suddenly, I am transported to the other side of the world and relocated in an environment which, although new, is also quite familiar. And because of this familiarity, also quite disorientating. When you travel, especially by plane, and through several time-zones, your points of reference are changed; signs become confused and communication lines seem to be crossed.

There is a definite shift in perception - an overlay of the past (with all its associated memories) and the present. This shift in perception, although acute at first, does eventually subside. But I believe there will always be a subtle difference in how things are perceived thereafter.

I am not claiming that I have undergone a massive psychological or cultural change by being displaced in another country - this is a claim which many others are more entitled to. My transition from the past to the present has in fact been very enjoyable. I have had the luxury of time and space to consider my change in environment and to learn to live comfortably with my shifts in perception.

When you leave your own city behind and soon after begin to walk about in a different city, you sometimes feel that you are about to bump into someone that you know, or at least recognise, and sometimes this does actually happen. Similarly, I would be working at my desk in Glasgow, and quite a few times, when I would just glance out of my window, someone that I know would cross the road just at the end of my street. As if a strange game of chance, probability and synchronisity was at play.

I have heard accounts from various people, of instances when they have been walking in for example, New York, London, or Nepal even and they have come across people they either know from their own city or have met before at some other distant time and place.

This has also happened to me.

But the strangest thing is coming across someone, quite unexpectedly who looks like someone you know, and added to this when they also move, gesture and perhaps even speak like that person, then again it can be quite disorientating.

The term which is used to describe this phenomenon is 'doppelganger'.

A kind of synchronisity of time, place and matter.

Since coming to Australia for example I have encountered people who remind me of friends and acquaintances from Glasgow.

Mark my words............doppelgangers are amongst us.

But the most unnerving experience was seeing someone who looked like me! I thought he looked too much like me - perhaps he looked like what I thought I looked like. After all, when do you ever get the chance to see what you actually look like? Okay so you can look in a mirror, or better still a combination of several mirrors..... so you can check your profile, a three-quarter viewpoint and even look at yourself from behind.

The first time you see yourself from all these new perspectives it can be a bit of a shock "shit I didn't know I looked like that! My neck looks rubbery at the back and at the front it connects in one line from my Adams Apple to my chin ".

But you don't really see you when you look in mirrors - after all you don't normally stand still, move your head around and stare in the one direction all at the same time. So it's not really the real you, and besides, everything is in reverse.

So what about photography then?

It has the ability to capture people when they are, in a sense, 'in action', which, if it is not flattering, at least it is more natural.

But think of all these young kids, growing up with all this technology, where a camera, a video and a computer are all part of their daily play. And in the case of video, they will be able to watch endless footage of themselves; being born, crawling about, crying, walking for the first time - and on and on throughout their growing years until, ...well up until they are no longer cute enough to video anymore.

But what effect will video have on these techno-kids when they grow up? Will it help them remember or will it replace the memories they have?

When I was young the illusion was a lot simpler!

And how long will it be before family videos have the same nostalgic quality as Super-8 film or fading snapshots. At first it did not seem that video could actually become a form of nostalgia - it revealed too much - the quality was too similar to a TV picture. In fact, the reality of it all was unbearable - every moment stretched out......filling up the same amount of time again, and the sound....everything picked up, and all that silence in between. Unlike Super-8 film, there was no urgency about it . At first, with video, people would stand like statues and just smile, as if they were getting their photograph taken. Or they would run towards the camera and stick their face in the lens - imagining that this would look like the 'out of speed' Super-8 films which snatched silent moments in small chunks at a time.......But it didn't look like that - it just looked stupid - especially when you realised that the camera was just going to keep recording - and you couldn't escape its constant gaze - it would see and hear everything you done - not just the funny bits.

Video cameras are like visual vacuum cleaners, hoovering up every little crumb in their path, sucking it in and storing it away for another day. Do you think there will ever come a point when there isn't enough time left in our lives to watch all that we have recorded?

But anyway I seem to have got off the track a bit.... I was talking about 'doppelgangers' wasn't I? But there is also a connection.......as I said, video does have the ability to capture a certain reality - a bit more objective than looking at yourself in mirrors or seeing yourself in photographs. And that time when I was on the beach and I saw the person that looked like me I did actually have the video camera with me - and I had surreptitiously been looking over and trying to video-record what I could.

Unfortunately the video batteries were running down.

But I was a bit embarrassed anyway, I'm not the kind of person who can just walk up to someone and say .........but then, shit, he started coming over towards me and walked right up to me and said "G'day mate, don't ya think we look like each other?" "Well, yes I was thinking the same thing, it's a bit wierd isn't it?" I replied. "Sure is mate, fuckin' weird alright".

With this 'doppelganger' thing always recurring with me I had wanted to start a project where I would photograph all the people I know, and when I came across people that looked like any one of them I would be able to approach them in the street and say "Excuse me but you really look like someone I know" and I would then be able to take my folder of portrait photos from my bag and say "See, this one here, don't you think that looks like you?"

This could either be flattering or insulting to the person, depending on what qualities were similar or exaggerated. But then they would be able to say either "Fuck off weirdo" or "Hey that's really interesting" and I would be able to tell them about my on-going project and ask them if they would mind if I took their photograph to add to my collection.

As the project progressed and I had photographs of friends, with strangers beside them, and then another stranger beside that one and others on the other side going in a different direction,.............. then, I would have to remember the new faces and be able to recognise a 'doppelganger' for each new addition. I could then set up anywhere and if people found someone that looked like them, or a friend of theirs, then I could add them to my collection too - the more I took the more chance of finding 'doppelgangers' for each of them! But just think of the results......it would be like all the different stages in a computer morphing program - but with no beginning or end, just constantly and gradually changing - in and out of identities.

So I thought, well maybe this is my opportunity to begin that project! After all, the contact has already been made, and it would probably be easiest to start with myself. So I said "Hey listen, no-one is going to believe me when I tell them that I met my doppelganger in Australia - why don't we take photographs of each other and I will send you copies, if you want that is?" So he agreed. He wasn't all that bright to be honest, which is even more disconcerting. If you meet your doppelganger you kind of expect all the good things about yourself to be emphasised, not see yourself as a bit of a dim-wit. Unfortunately, my video-camera batteries had run down - and I only had one shot left in my snapshot camera. But if I could get the video working again I could always take a photo from the TV screen or digitise on computer and get a print-out that way. He said he just lived across the road from the beach, I could plug the camera in to the mains and record over there. So we crossed the road and entered a big white-washed house.

So once I had set the camera up I sat down in front of it and recorded myself first. Then he sat down. He seemed a bit edgy now, I don't know why - then he started mumbling, and saying things like 'Who the fuck are you anyway', and 'I'm not going anywhere after this' - he even mentioned something about 'the X-files' and 'aliens that replicate', or something like that. Then he started saying "anyway we don't look like each other" .....he then reached over to a drawer in the kitchen - at this point I thought he was going for a large kitchen knife, but instead he produced an electric hair trimmer, and as if to prove his point - that we were different - he proceeded to cut all his hair off. I was a bit frightened of making any sudden movements by this point, I hadn't even switched the camera back on to 'Record'. Let him calm down I thought and then get out of there fast. This guy was a nutter and he was beginning to look like one the more hair he lost. Then he disappeared briefly, still mumbling things to himself, and came back with a completely different change of clothes!

He had calmed down now. So just as I was leaving I managed to get my snapshot camera out and take the final shot on the spool.

He actually seemed quite pleased with himself now -

happy in his new identity.

(c)Stephen Hurrel - 1997.