Humans have an almost unlimited capability for face recognition. You’d think that after a while, the possible combinations of the shapes of two eyes, one nose and one mouth are depleted; instead, we can see thousands of strangers in every day life and in pictures and know if they are familiar faces to us or not.
I like to watch old group pictures where faces are clearly visible, and scan them for familiar faces.
For instance, I have a genuine picture of a wedding party in 1910 France. There’s a guy on the front row who is the spitting image of John Cleese. A woman in the back has a haggard face, that looks strikingly like Mick Jagger did in his late fitifies. A beautiful woman smiling next to the bride could have modelled for the Mona Lisa.
Does anyone else do this? Can anyone link to examples?
I thought you were talking about something different. I went on a trip with a friend to the beach in high school. On the way there (or back) we stopped at her grandparent’s house, who lived several hours away. There was a picture of my dad dressed in old fashioned clothes! It freaked me out. Turns out friend’s grandmother’s maiden name was the same as mine. We started talking family and she and my grandfather were first cousins. So that made her dad (who was the man in the picture) my dad’s great uncle. The resemblance was amazing – he even had the same mustache my dad wore at the time!
Reminds me of the time I was in Italy some years back. Beside me was a tour group from Lord knows where but in the group was the exact, spitting image of my wife’s brother. This was beyond bizarre and you know how everyone in the world is supposed to have his or her exact double somewhere out there? well I had just stumbled upon my brother-in-law’s.
So without the guy knowing about it (nor giving his consent) I snapped a picture of him and he remained none the wiser.
When I got back home, of the many stories to recount to my wife, I told her this one. She remained thoroughly unimpressed and I told her to wait until she saw the picture. So she did, and her verdict? The guy looked nothing like her brother and then upon my closer examination, she was more right than wrong. They had the same hair color and both wore glasses but that was about it. This led once again to my losing all credibility with my wife and then the long tedious task of reclaiming it –an unending cycle that persists to this day.
Not exactly what the OP was talking about, but from the thread title I was reminded of this.
My sister stumbled across a picture of a man held at a Nazi concentration camp who looks exactly like he could be my brother. At least, in a weird sort of way. If you didn’t know our family well you might not see the resemblance, but it’s immediately obvious to us. She gasped when she read his name - which was our family name. Our nearest common ancestor would have to be at least two generations back from this man, but based on historical evidence I think it’s pretty clear we’re related somehow. It’s a bit disturbing to look at the face of this man who may have been tortured beyond imagining, and see yourself.
