Photographer Daniel Schumann first went to St. Francis Hospice near Dusseldorf, Germany, in order to fulfill the country’s civil service requirement. “Until a couple of years ago," he explains in an email, “we had to do either military service or civil service in Germany.” What began as mandatory community service turned into a new view of the human experience and, later, an artistic pursuit: Schumann returned to St. Francis for a year-long photo project that would eventually satisfy both his artistic drive and his personal curiosity surrounding death.
He befriended several of the residents at the hospice and got their permission to photograph them throughout their stay, for either “personal or societal” reasons, Schumann explains: Some wished to have professional photographs to show their loved ones, while others supported Schumann’s mission to offer an alternative image of aging and death. “Seven out of the nine people shown in the [project] died during the project and are also portrayed after death,” he tells us, adding that “taking pictures of the dead has become a taboo, [but] dead people are still people.”
The photos depict the residents as they were before and after death. The effect is solemn, yet tranquil. And since death and dying lay at the heart of Schumann’s entire project, something about his subjects’ experience will always remain unknown to his viewer.
Schumann is quick to recognise that this aspect of his photos — the strangeness of death — can make people uncomfortable. But that does not stop him from showing them: "I’m documenting a story that keeps being written after the end of my project," he explains. "People come, people go. Some stay longer, others shorter. The course [is] never straight.”
The project, entitled Purple, Brown, Grey, White, and Black — Life in Death, is available for purchase here. Click ahead to view Schumann’s photographs and read more of his reflections on living and dying in hospice care.
"Ulrike H. [pictured here] became the main character of the book, since she was the first person I portrayed, and she was in the hospice for the full year that I was working on the project."
Photo: Courtesy of Daniel Schumann.
"She is the reason for the title. The colours of her sweaters appear in this order: Purple, brown, grey, white, and black."
Photo: Courtesy of Daniel Schumann.
"Those colours seemed to me like a symbol of her situation, of not being able to move anymore, of not being able to live the life she wanted to live."
Photo: Courtesy of Daniel Schumann.
"She was suffering from ALS, a muscle-weakening illness."
Photo: Courtesy of Daniel Schumann.
"Before my civil service, I was never confronted with death and didn’t think about it a lot."
Photo: Courtesy of Daniel Schumann.
"Thus, the civil service had a great impact on my life, and I’m thankful for the experiences that I’ve made and the encounters that I had with the people in the hospice."
Photo: Courtesy of Daniel Schumann.
"I learned that death doesn’t follow life, but death is part of life. And everybody encounters death differently."
Photo: Courtesy of Daniel Schumann.
"Some people are very peaceful, while others get really scared."
Photo: Courtesy of Daniel Schumann.
"I met these people for the first time when they knew that they would die, and their faces were showing traces of suffering and medication."
Photo: Courtesy of Daniel Schumann.
"After seeing old photographs of them, I learned that some people look after death much more like when they were healthy. Seeing these people after death was sometimes like learning more about their personality."
Photo: Courtesy of Daniel Schumann.
"How you die depends a lot on your personality and mindset. It was also amazing for me to see how people can wait for weeks to meet somebody important one last time. And after this encounter, they die all [of] a sudden. "
Photo: Courtesy of Daniel Schumann.
"After having talked to many people who all had different ideas about death, I don’t have a certain picture [of] how I expect death to be... I learned that dying can be terrible, [but] I don't need to be afraid of death."
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