In 2013, with dwindling assignments from the newspapers and magazines he worked for, the freelance photographer Augusto Brázio began to wander the streets of Lisbon. He soon discovered innumerable stores with closed shutters: in the centre and the surrounding suburbs, in Porto, in the Algarve and all over the north of Portugal, thousands of them had closed. Some still had a "Back soon" sign on the door, while others had clearly been abandoned. Because of the combined effects of the new Urban Rent Act, which makes it easier to evict tenants, of diminishing consumption and of higher taxes, shopkeepers faced increasingly unviable conditions. Owners, meanwhile, wanted to renovate their properties and make the most of the droves of tourists visiting the country, to build boutique hotels, open gourmet stores or sell traditional products in sophisticated packaging.