Photographer captures people right BEFORE and AFTER their DEATHS

German photographer Walter Scheels has always been afraid of death. But at 70 years old, Scheels decided to fight this fear again.
He started an unusual project that requires a lot of empathy: taking people's photographs right before and after their death.

Scheels and his partner Beat Lakotta were amazed at how many people agreed to this project and how few rejected it. Shortly before his death, one man told Scheels, "I am so happy that you're doing this. No one else listens to me, no one wants to hear or know how it really is to die."

This project has helped Scheels overcome his fear, but it's also opened the door to something much larger: the repression of death in our society. We never really see the dead, and if we do they are made up as if they were merely sleeping. This photo series "Life Before Death" is an attempt to draw people's attention to the fact that death is a natural part of life.