The photographs kept returning to the same question. Not what the city looks like, but what it is made of.

Limestone worn by centuries of weather. Azulejo tile pressed into walls that have stood longer than most countries. Water that has no end. The river wide and grey at dusk, the Atlantic arriving against dark sand.

Again and again the camera found itself at edges. The gap between two buildings with a dome just visible above. A cloister doorway where blue tile gives way to dark wood gives way to shadow. A shoreline where water loses its momentum against the sand.

No image is fully inside a space or fully outside it. Each is caught at the moment of crossing.

The best light arrived at the margins of the day. Late enough that the stone had absorbed the warmth and was beginning to give it back. The city lit not from above but horizontally, raking across surfaces, finding texture in everything it touched.

Inside, a single bulb. Outside, the last of the sky.