ORIANA CAPRA
Deathbed

Death is the only certainty we have in life, and we are still quick to turn our eyes away from it, to regard it as a taboo, impregnated with sadness and sorrow.
If we view death as the end, it comes naturally to consider it unworthy of celebration and documentation, undeserving of, or even unsuitable for remembrance. But when you encounter death firsthand, the very nature of dying is humanized. It is simultaneously physical and intangible; awakening and humbling. Mortality becomes real enough to lose its intimidating power. One second we are here, and the next we are not. It is that simple: we are fragile. ⁣⁣⁣
Why do we deem so special the day we come into this world and not the day we leave it?
After I lost my father, who photographed every milestone of my life, I wished someone had photographed his evolution into his new state of being. Later on, when his grandmother died, I felt the need to photograph her. This is 103-year-old Alicia, my great-grandmother, as she left this world.

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