Photography hasn't stopped happening since then — even during a short break from working with Médecins Sans Frontières, he still finds a way to make photographs. And it was as a freelancer that he arrived in Portugal, once again carrying a portfolio and taking it to the newspapers. Newly arrived in Lisbon, and still unfamiliar with his surroundings, he notices that Praça do Marquês is home to the editorial offices of Diário de Notícias and Expresso.

This is just the first of several coincidences in a chain: when he arrives at Praça do Marquês, he only finds a parking space next to the Expresso, which is his first stop. Once he arrived, at the reception he was mistaken for someone waiting for an interview and was taken to a floor where the newsroom of the music weekly Blitz was located. "I didn't even realise how I'd got there, and at Blitz they weren't expecting me at all. In the midst of the confusion, and despite the fact that they weren't looking for a photojournalist at the time, the director of Blitz asked him to leave his portfolio with him. With no more copies to take to other newsrooms, there was nothing left to do but wander around Lisbon and wait for a call. The call came, and his career in Portugal began. First at Blitz, then at the weekly Sol, and finally in his favourite format: freelance.

He then began approaching Africans he met on the street. He would always start with a conversation and then move on to a portrait. He always wanted the portraits to be a construction of both the photographer and the subject. And at the moment of the portrait, José realised a fallacy of his: he used to direct his actors with the suggestion "if you wanted to send a portrait back home, how would you like to be seen?".

It worked with the first person, but not with the second because that person's home is Porto, where they have all their family and friends. Hence the essential subtitle Presentes! — Africans and Afro-descendants in Porto. This is a book that has given José ample opportunity to value this "invisibilised" layer of Porto's population - but this book is just one phase of a long project that began with an exhibition at Espaço Mira. And given the extensive material of interviews and portraits that José has accumulated, it's a project that still has some way to go. If only because a census never really ends. Or, at least, it doesn't end as long as the idea that Porto is a city with few black people lasts.