“Saudade” is a difficult to translate in English, Portuguese word. It is a word that you find in the core of the Portuguese culture. It has been described as an intense longing for people, places, or times that are lost - but for which there is a potential, however slight, to regain. It relates to the words nostalgia and melancholy, mixed also with joy. I took the photographs of this essay during a seven day visit to Lisbon in October 2006.

They are no representative of the city and they are not the kind of pictures that can easily fit in a travel guide. Without a doubt they will probably be misleading. It is more of a personal documentary of the people and the city of Lisbon. I have focus my attention mostly on scenes that relate with the idea of transfer and movement and their opposites, rigidness and immobility.

On this quest I had as emotional guides, the poetry of Fernando Pessoa and the songs of Fado. The sadness that may imbue the pictures is not to be attributed to the people or the place but rather to my seeing. I cannot find better words to describe this, than Pessoa’s very own.

“What we see, is not made up of what we are seeing but of what we are”.