德国摄影家沃尔特·舍斯其实也很怕死，但他觉得很有必要拍下这一不同寻常的系列特写图片。这些图片每组有两张，一张是死者生前的照片，另一张则是其死亡当天的照片。她夫人贝特·拉科塔则负责记录与死者生前最后几日的对话。这对夫妻告诉记者乔安娜·莫尔海德，直面死亡的事实转变了他们对于生死的看法。
图：沃尔特·舍斯和贝特·拉库塔夫妇
The German photographer Walter Schels thinks it not only odd, but wrong that death is so hidden from view. Aged 72, he's also keenly aware that his own death is getting closer. Which is why, a few years ago, he embarked on a bizarre project. He decided to shoot a series of portraits of people both before and after they had died. The result is a collection of photographs of 24 people - ranging from a baby of 17 months to a man of 83 - that goes on show in London next week. Alongside the portraits are the stories of the individuals concerned, penned by Beate Lakotta, Schels' partner, who spent time with the subjects in their final days and who listened as they told her how it felt to be nearing the end of their lives.
这位德国摄影家认为，我们把死亡隐匿在视线之外很奇怪，而且不应该这么做。他今年72岁，也深知自己的日子也快到头了，这也是为什么几年前他开始尝试做这么一个稀奇古怪的项目。他决定拍摄一组死者生前和死后的照片，最后一共成功找到了24位志愿者进行拍摄，从17个月大的婴儿到83岁的耄耋老人，各个年龄和性别都有。这个图片展将于下周在伦敦开幕，每组特写图片旁还附有图片中主人公的故事。这些故事是由其妻贝特执笔整理撰稿的，她在每一位死者生前数日与其朝夕相处，倾听他们临近死亡一点一滴的心声。
Logistically, the project was fraught with difficulties. Finding people who were dying was relatively easy - the couple tracked them down through hospices in Hamburg and Berlin. Perhaps surprisingly, most of the people they approached were willing to be included, though a few said no. But a bigger problem, for Schels and Lakotta, was being continuously on standby to go to take pictures. "You'd get a call at 3am and it would be the hospice to say that someone had died, and we'd have to get up straight away and get over there so we could fit in a photo shoot between the relatives arriving and the undertaker coming," explains Lakotta, 42. "It was relentless, and very draining emotionally." Schels agrees: "We'd come back here in the evening, after a day when we'd maybe been to a funeral and shot pictures of a dead body, and we'd sit here crying and drinking whisky and wine." Both agree they couldn't possibly have completed the project alone. "There were times when it seemed such a strange, unbelievable thing to be doing," says Lakotta. "We could only talk to one another about it."
毫无疑问，这个拍摄计划困难重重。要找到濒死的病人相对容易，他们奔波于汉堡和柏林各大濒死病人安养所，虽然有些病人会拒绝，但多数还是会爽快的答应。更大的问题是舍斯和拉科塔成天紧绷着神经处于待命状态。“你可能会在凌晨3点接到安养所电话说某人已经死去了，我们必须与时间赛跑，以最快速度赶到那里，在家属瞻仰完遗容后、殡葬人员到来之前拍好照片。”42岁的拉科塔说道，“往往这种时候很悲伤，我们也会禁不住落泪。”舍斯表示赞同：“在参加葬礼并拍下了死者的特写照片之后，我们回到家往往会坐着边和威士忌、葡萄酒边抹去眼角的泪水。”夫妻二人都同意他们没有对方的支持无法独自将计划完成。“有的时候我自己都觉得这件事很奇怪，甚至有些难以置信”，拉科塔说道，“我们只能互相谈心缓解自我质疑”。
Photographing the bodies was a challenge. "The first shoot was terrifying: we were so afraid that we just crept in and photographed the body in profile, lying on the bed, without moving it at all," says Schels. "But when we compared the before-and-after pictures, we realised it didn't work - we hadn't captured the face in a way that mirrored it in its before-death state." Over the next few weeks the pair experimented to overcome the problems of rigor mortis and the effects of gravity on a dead face, until they came up with an answer. "We realised we had to sit the subject up, as they had been in the before-death shot," says Lakotta. She went, she says, from being someone who could hardly bear to touch a dead body to someone who thought nothing of moving a body around and coaxing it into a sitting pose to get a good face-on shot. "But one thing you never get used to is the feel of a dead person - it's always shocking," she says. "It's like cement - that cold, that hard, and that heavy."
给尸体拍照是一种挑战。“第一次给尸体拍照令我感到心惊胆战：我们害怕到只能悄悄溜进病房给死者拍侧面照，一点都不敢动。”舍斯说：“但我们对比了生前死后的照片后发现，这种拍法行不通。我们没有将死者的照片与其生前照片联系起来。”在过去几周里，这对夫妇做了许多试验，反复对比如何克服尸僵和死者脸部重力的影响，最终找到了一种方法。“我们意识到必须让尸体坐起来，因为他们生前也用这个姿势拍过照”，拉科塔说道。她之前害怕得都无法碰触一下死尸，现在已然毫无怯意，冷静的将尸体翻转过来坐起固定，以便她对其进行脸部特写。“但有一点永远无法习惯的是死者的触感，总是会让人吃一惊”，她说，“尸体摸起来就像水泥，冰冷冰冷、发僵发硬，而且特别的沉”。
Some of the subjects, says Schels, were bitter about how lonely the business of dying had made them feel - for some, this was why they agreed to take part in the project. "Some of the dying said, 'It's so good you're doing this - it's really important to show what it's like. No one else is listening to me, no one wants to hear or know what it's really like.'"
舍斯说，有些时候他会觉得很孤独，因为这种与死人打交道的事情没什么人会关注，这令他很痛苦，当然少人涉猎也是他同意参与的原因。“有些濒死的病人说，‘你这么做真是太好了，向世人展示我们的感觉真的意义深重。没有别人听我们说话，没有人想听，没有人想知道我们到底是什么感觉。’”
Both Schels and Lakotta feel the experience of being close to so many dying people has changed how they feel not only about dying themselves, but how they feel about living - and also, how they would support a friend or relative through terminal illness. "I know now how important it is to be there, or at least to offer to be there, as much as possible - and to not be afraid of asking questions, and of listening to the answers," says Lakotta. Schels, meanwhile, says that while death never loses its ability to shock, it has - for them - lost its ability to frighten. He is no longer terrified of dead bodies, and nor is he frightened of the future. He remains, as he has long been, an agnostic, having noticed that believers and non-believers alike showed the same fear of the unknown that awaited them.
舍斯和拉库塔都觉得，与那么多濒死病人朝夕相处的经历不光使得他们对死亡本身的感受发生转变，而且他们现在对于“生”的态度也有了质的变化。他们现在会陪伴支持亲友度过病患的最后时光。拉科塔说：“我现在知道陪伴身边有多么重要，或者至少不断提出要陪他们，不要害怕提问，也不要害怕听到他们的回答。”而舍斯说，虽然死亡依然会他们心头一震，但对他们来说，死亡已经不是一件可怕的事了。他不再对尸体产生恐惧，也不会对未来产生恐惧。信教和不信教的人不可避免的都会对未知产生同样的恐惧，他却一如既往地拥护不可知论。
Most importantly, the couple feel they know the importance of making the time they have left count.
最重要的是，这对夫妻现在知道要珍惜时间了，要把每分每秒都活出价值。
"What I was used to," says Schels, who has taken hundreds of portraits during his career, "was people who smiled for the camera. It's usually an automatic response. But these people never smiled. They were incredibly serious; and more than that, they weren't pretending anything any more. People are almost always pretending something, but these people had lost that need. I felt it enabled me as a photographer to get as close as it's possible to get to the core of a person; when you're facing the end, everything that's not real is stripped away. You're the most real you'll ever be, more real than you've ever been before".
职业生涯里拍照无数的舍斯说：“我之前已经习惯了人们在照相机前强颜欢笑，这通常都是条件反射。但这些人从来不笑，他们异常严肃，而且，他们不再掩饰任何东西了。人们几乎无时无刻不再掩饰，但这些人已经失去了他们所需的健康和时间。我觉得，作为一个摄影师，我能零距离接触一个人内心的最深层次。当你直面死亡，所有不真实的东西都随风而逝了。再真不过此刻之人，比之前任何时候都更加真实。”
“I want so very much to die. I want to become part of that vast extraordinary light. But dying is hard work.”
Edelgard Clavey, age 67
“我真的想死。我想升天。但等死也并非易事。”
Edelgard Clavey, 终年67岁
“Death is nothing. I embrace death. It is not eternal. Afterwards, when we meet God, we become beautiful.”Maria Hai-Anh Tuyet Cao, age 52
“死亡没什么。我乐意迎接死亡。人死后并非永世不得超生，我们能见到上帝，我们会变得很美。”
Maria Hai-Anh Tuyet Cao，终年52岁
“Don’t they get it? I’m going to die! That’s all I think about, every second when I’m on my own.”
Heiner Schmitz, age 52
“他们还没懂吗？我要死了！我现在满脑子都是死亡，一个人静静地想。”
Heiner Schmitz，终年52岁
“I really loved life. Now it’s over. I’m not afraid of what’s coming.”
Michael Lauermann, age 56
“我真的很珍爱生命，但现在一切都结束了。我也不怕死。”
Michael Lauermann，终年56岁
“All my efforts were in vain. It is as though I am being rejected by life itself.”
Barbara Gröne, age 51
“我所有的努力都白费了。就像我被生命拒绝。”
Barbara Gröne，终年51岁
Sister Dagmar could not detect any signs of a final struggle for breath. Nothing, save for the startled look, as if he had wanted to say: “What? Was that it?”
Jens Pallas, age 62
护士Dagmar小姐感觉不到他最后的呼吸挣扎。这惊悚的表情也无济于事，他好像在说：“什么？我死了吗？”
Jens Pallas,终年62岁联系客服
