FREE LIKE A BIRD

Manfred Schuler is 93 years old and lives alone in an apartment in the small Franconian town of Forchheim. His days are uniform: in the morning he mixes a spoonful of instant coffee with hot water, then walks around the gray apartment block, gets his lunch from the butcher's next door, takes an afternoon nap, eats the leftovers from lunch in the evening and watches quiz shows on TV until he falls asleep. All his life, he has decided against a partnership and children. “Free like a bird,” he says. For photographer Jana Margarete Schuler, Manfred Schuler is one of the most important people in her life. “Uncle Manni” is her great-uncle. She has been photographing his everyday life for nine years and, together with him, asks herself the question: is loneliness in old age the price of being free?