Cobalt Blue Press

Luís Martins Pisco (aka Piscografia/Piscographia/Azul Cobalto Porto/Lente Progressiva/Cobalt Blue Press) is a photographer born in Lisbon, with a degree in Anthropology and heritage studies, and a father of two daughters. He has lived and worked in Porto since the spring of 2001. 

In an autumn of the eighties, he acquired his first camera, and since then, he has been observing and photographing his daily journeys through the cities he visits. 

From this road trip through everyday life—searching for places, light, movement, and states of mind—personal visual diaries emerge, whose documentary nature deepens over time. One such example is the series More Pictures About Dark Cities and Vacant Buildings, which has been developed over several decades. 

Influenced by the work of authors such as Daido Moriyama, Trent Parke, Elliott Erwitt, and many others, he documents the transformations in Porto’s urban and social landscape and its surroundings. His images have been published in the Another Postcards collection (2018) and are part of ongoing series such as Besieged/Silent Screams, Once Were Tripeiros, Suburban Landscapes, The Unspeakable Poetry of Surrounding Areas, and Urban Gardening. 

In 2017, he launched Azul Cobalto Porto, through which he sells part of his photographic collection dedicated to Porto, including the Another Porto Postcards collection, as well as works by other artists. In 2022, he created the Cobalt Blue Press label, through which he has been publishing his work in low-cost, limited editions. 

Since 2023, he has been collaborating as an editor in the publication of DES_Photomag  

Photozines & other adventures 

The Devil’s Bridge, 36p. 27,94x21,59cm, 10 signed and numbered copies, Cobalt Blue Press. 2025 

Last flowers, 58p., 20x25cm hardcover, 10 copies Cobalt Blue Press, Cobalt Blue Press, 2025 

The Devil on the loose, 40p,, 14,8x21cm, 10 signed and numbered copies, Cobalt Blue Press, 2025 

Nollaig i mBaile Átha Cliath, 36p., 10,5x14,8 cm, 4 signed and numbered copies, Cobalt Blue Press, 2025 

More Pictures About Dark Cities and Vacant Buildings 2004#04, 40p., 14m8x21cm, 20 copies, Cobalt Blue Press, 2024 

More Pictures About Dark Cities and Vacant Buildings 2004#03, 40p., 14m8x21cm, 20 copies, Cobalt Blue Press, 20244 

More Pictures About Dark Cities and Vacant Buildings 2004#02, 40p., 14m8x21cm, 20 copies, Cobalt Blue Press, 2024 

More Pictures About Dark Cities and Vacant Buildings 2004#01, 40p., 14m8x21cm, 20 copies, Cobalt Blue Press, 2024 

A evening with the Gran Morsa, 40p., 14m8x21cm, 10 copies, Cobalt Blue Press, 2024 

How to wander endlessly, 40p., 14m8x21cm, 20 copies, Cobalt Blue Press, 2024 

How to disappear completely, 40p., 14m8x21cm, 20 copies, Cobalt Blue Press, 2024 

Céu, 40p,, 14,8x21cm, 10 copies, Cobalt Blue Press, 2023 

What a fool I am/à rasca, 14,8x21cm, 20 copies, Cobalt Blue Press, 2023 

Urban Gardening, 40p., 10,5x14,8 cm, 5 copies, Cobalt Blue Press, 2023 

Three days in Paris, Photos about clichês and mass tourism, 14,8x21cm, 5 copies, Cobalt Blue Press, 2023 

Last flowers for the hospital, 10,5x14,8 cm, harmonium 1 copie, Cobalt Blue Press, 2023 Cobalt Blue Press 

More Pictures about Dark Cities and Vacant Buildings, 2014, 14,8x21cm, 20 copies, Cobalt Blue Press, 2021 

More Pictures about Dark Cities and Vacant Buildings, 2013, 14,8x21cm, 20 copies, Cobalt Blue Press, 2021  

More Pictures about Dark Cities and Vacant Buildings, 2012, 14,8x21cm, 20 copies, Cobalt Blue Press, 2021 

More Pictures about Dark Cities and Vacant Buildings, 2011, 14,8x21cm, 20 copies, Cobalt Blue Press, 2021 

More Pictures about Dark Cities and Vacant Buildings, 2010, 14,8x21cm, 20 copies, Cobalt Blue Press, 2021 

More Pictures about Dark Cities and Vacant Buildings, 2007-2008, 14,8x21cm, 20 copies, Cobalt Blue Press, 2021 

More Pictures about Dark Cities and Vacant Buildings, 2000-2006, 14,8x21cm, 20 copies, Cobalt Blue Press, 2021 

More Pictures about Dark Cities and Vacant Buildings, 1986-1996, 14,8x21cm, 20 copies, Cobalt Blue Press, 2021 

Amsterdam, essay on the use of bicycles in a urban environment, 14,8x21cm, 20 copies, Cobalt Blue Press, 2021 

De Caras. Alt Books, 2009 

CRUZ, Hugo. Pais… Uma Experiência. Porto, Editorial Papiro, 2006 (capa) 

Exhibitions 

2023 - Fanzineist, Vienna, 2023 (c) 

2023 - Into the Open, Vienna, 2023, Kunsthalle Exnergasse, curator Fiona Irene Graf (c) 

2022 - Gentes Lugares e Quotidianos: Fotografias sociais do Grande Porto, Centro Português de Fotografia, Porto (c) 

2009 - De Caras, Espaço ALT (Porto 2009) (c) 

2009 - Blogwall, Espaço ALT (Porto, 2010) (c) 

2008 - Fórum Vallis Longus (Valongo, Fevereiro de 2008) (i) 

2008 - Galeria Municipal das Lajes do Pico (Açores, 2008) (i) 

2007 - Biblioteca Municipal de Barcelos (Setembro de 2007) (i) 

2007 - Galeria Municipal de Alter-do-Chão (Julho e Agosto de 2007) (i) 

2007 - Café com Arte (Coimbra, Junho de 2007) (i) 

2007 - Café Paju (Porto, Maio de 2007) (i) 

2007 - Biblioteca Municipal de Albufeira (Abril de 2007) (i) 

2007 - Hospital Pedro Hispano, Matosinhos « (Março de 2007) (i) 

2007 - Fórum Municipal Luísa Todi, Setúbal (Fevereiro de 2007) (i) 

2007 - Clube Literário do Porto (Janeiro de 2007) (i) 

2006 - Centro de Artes e Espetáculos da Figueira da Foz (Outubro de 2006) (i) 

2006 - O Tempo – 4º concurso de Fotografia da CAIS, estação da Baixa-Chiado, Lisboa, (c) 

2006 - O Tempo – 4º concurso de Fotografia da CAIS, , Estação da Trindade, Porto (c) 

About MORE PICTURES ABOUT DARK CITIES AND VACANT BUILDINGS is a unique work in Portuguese photography. A roadtrip through the author's life, which lasts for three decades meeting places, people and states of mind,.  

The series begins in the late eighties, in what seems to correspond to the first steps, not very successful, in the photographic art, and is abandoned in the middle of the second decade of the new millennium. At that time, as far as is revealed to us, the author will have abandoned the preferential use of black and white, starting a new and promising color cycle, the result of which we will possibly know in a few years.  

Although the images presented could be organized by themes, places or moods, the author chose to emphasize the diary character of his work, presenting them chronologically in temporal cycles.  

While the initial images show a desire to discover and a youthful photographic impudence, at the dawn of the new millennium a growing disenchantment emerges, which often accompanies the political and economic degradation of his country, clearly evident in the images corresponding to the years of intervention by the Troika, that the author so well summarized most directly in his series “À Rasca”. The most productive and daring periods, which are registered from 2006 onwards, possibly correspond to the period of discovery and participation in the Fotoalternativa.net collective, which had a strong influence on the author's approach.  

More Pictures about Dark Cities and Vacant Buildings is an intimate and personal visual diary that is now being unveiled, but which still preserves the anonymity appreciated by the author.  

Pablo Miralles, curator