If there is ever a relief for loss, that can only be love. Portugal is amongst the few EU countries where care workers still lack formal status. The country has now 800k informal care workers. These are the stories of those in utter need and another’s utter commitment. They quit their jobs and put their lives and lifelong professions aside, but also vanity, materialism, and selfishness. Driven by their blood ties or spirituality, for those who care there is no other life meaning to look for. Even without resources, time, or money.  Even without the much needed support in the hardest hours. They care because they love, they love because they care. Perhaps the purest of the purity which these images tried to capture is nothing other than the purity of the souls that, in life, own the form of the bodies.

The Muslim woman has very few rights but many responsibilities. From domestic and family obligations to choosing what to wear, all choices are subjected to the husband’s scrutiny. In Morocco, land of bright warm colours and easy smiles, countryside women are not equal to city women. Countryside women are made of much work and few options in a country where polygamy is a right without obligations.

“Transfer” designates the operation of moving migrants from one boat to another in high sea. Not all migrants are taken aboard the rescue ships. Many are rescued by merchant ships then moved onto military vessels and further transferred to NGOs-owned boats. Migrants are treated the same way as cargo. 

39 year-old Ratna Khaleesy is an Indonesian and Muslim woman living and working in precarious conditions in Macau, one of the wealthiest cities in the world. An emigrant, Ratna works as a housekeeper for a local Chinese family. “Some of the hotel bedrooms in this city cost more per night than what I earn in one month”, she says.

On the 10th of August a wildfire swept across the districts of Monchique, Silves, and Portimão leaving on its trail 27ha of burned land and 41 wounded. The report begun when the fire was already on the outskirts of Monchique and the town centre was still at risk. Many people lost all their belongings. With the fire seemingly under control, the strong winds spread out the flames further threatening even more houses and animals. Dozens of houses were totally destroyed and hundreds of animals died in the blaze.

Official estimates predict that by 2030 one in each two persons will have one cancer throughout his or her life. According to the 2017 Report by the National Programme for Oncological Diseases, the number of cancer-related deaths increased by 3% over a one-year period largely concurring with the trend in Europe. Since its foundation in 1923 the Portuguese Institute of Oncological Diseases in Lisbon is dedicated to the treatment of cancer. In a month-long report it was possible to account the many facets of the disease – not always straight paths, most often with many obstacles. There are those who look to leave cured of cancer and those who treat, but more than anything, there are those who care. A hospital where corridors are full of hope and one word: humanity.

A WHO report claims an illegal organ is sold every hour worldwide. In India, kidney illnesses are increasingly common and more than 200 thousand kidneys are needed each year. Such demand spurred a black market that preys on the vulnerable and destitute. From indebted farmers to slum dwellers, many are determined to sell their organs. Life-changing sums are promised upfront but after the actual transplant they end up receiving only a small amount or none at all.

Joana, Armindo, Benita, and Leonardo departed from Ponta Delgada’s harbour in Azores on the 6th of November 2016. On their sailboat, the family was set to circumnavigate the globe in two years. They aimed to know the world, to share it, to give a different education to their children. Seeking a better world they also sought something with a positive impact for society and the environment. The family travelled to 25 countries and returned to Azores on the 29th of August 2018. This report was made in Bali (Indonesia) in January 2018.

Dating back to the 13th century, the celebrations of the Holy Week in Zamora are full of history, faith and culture and remain largely unchanged. Brotherhoods of penitents walk the city day and night followed by hundreds of barefoot brothers in a procession where precious relics of the city’s churches can be seen. The Holy Week in Zamora was officially declared Fiesta of International Tourist Interest in 1986.

The heart of the city became its own shame. The Pasig river, once Manila’s economic centre, has been the mirror of a highly unequal society – 21,6% of the population lives below the poverty line in a daily struggle against extreme pollution. Desperate for any kind of work, many Filipinos sought the city for a livelihood. Yet, in the downfall of their dreams many ended up living in illegal settlements on the river banks.  Domestic waste transformed the Pasig in an open sewer. Neglected for too long, the river was declared biologically dead in the 1990s. Today, fragile lives take shelter in fragile shacks – mere wooden sticks pitched above extremely polluted waters. The Pasig is amongst the top 20 most polluted rivers in the world.

From São Tomé to the outskirts of Lisbon, they were promised dignity. Bairro da Torre in Camarate hosts a community brought from São Tomé Island under a bilateral agreement for healthcare provision. Forlorn and forgotten by their government, around 200 people now live in extremely hazardous conditions. Without electricity, without an income, and socially excluded, they wait in a tight labyrinth of shacks amidst the piles of rubbish. In the dark since ever, they keep waiting for the so promised dignity.

The Entrudo remains a deeply rooted tradition in many villages of Galicia. Encarnados is a set of portraits of traditional Galician masks that fluctuates between fiction and reality. These portraits attempt to see through reality and capture its magic. By placing the unreal or magic in the ordinary – in itself a way to emote, to live a fiction – we sought to give true-existence to the realms of fantasy. What is this about? True or false? Anything goes for a glimpse outside our own reality.

The Nazaré Canyon is an undersea gorge off the coast of Nazaré. Said to be the largest in Europe, it spans 230km (140mi) with depths reaching 5km (16,000ft) below the seafloor. Due to the high waves it creates, the Nazaré Canyon is a hotspot for big wave surfing. In 1968, while shooting a documentary on surf in various locations around the globe (“Follow Me”), two American surfers got to surf in Nazaré for the first time. But Nazaré shores rose to world fame only much later in November 2011 with Garrett McNamara’s record-breaking 23,8 metres wave. Surfers from all continents flock here ever since to ride such wave.

Fifteen years ago it would be unthinkable to have women fighting Muay Thai in any ring in Thailand. Today things are changing and more and more women get to practice one of the most popular sports in the country. The city of Chiang Mai is the ground-zero of this change. In several Muay Thai gyms women already outnumber men and at least two women-fights are performed every night in one of the city’s most prominent boxing stadiums. In the gyms and through this sport, these women found a community of like-minded girls and lovers of body-fight, and also an opportunity to prove it in the ring. Despite all the changes, these fighters feel there is still a long way to go for Muay Thai women to be perceived on an equal footing with men and be justly acknowledged.

Along the tracks of São Miguel Island in Azores they walk in line assured by a faith stronger than the fog that covers them in the night. Dozens of men – ‘brothers’ by soul – trekking 300km in one week, praying, and stopping at the Island’s shrines. They pray for themselves, for those dear to them and for the ones they meet along the way. In the end – foregone moments of pain and tiredness – tears of joy and hope come through. Unabated for more than 500 years, the sacred ritual remains alive and strong.