Beeckman was sitting on a train on the Linha do Norte, which passes through the little town, and stumbled upon Espinho’s fishermen’s quarter, a self-contained area of the city consisting of twenty streets at the most, where the roofs are sometimes still made of corrugated sheeting and the population has had to resort to a largely vegetative existence. Out of the once proud local fishing fleet, only two ships still navigate the currents of the Atlantic. Beeckman immediately felt moved by the quiet drama he witnessed before him. Since then Beeckman has returned to the fishing quarter year after year, for a number of weeks at a time, to photograph a world that is disappearing before his camera lens.
In September 2021 Vincen presented the book to the community of Espinho, as documented in this video:
