Work on the "Nocturnes" originally began in 1988. Vasconcellos halted the project after a year and only resumed it in 1998. Intrigued by the complex relationships that exist in a metropolis like Sao Paulo, Vasconcellos has created an artistic body of work in which he pays homage to his city. "I always thought about converting the images into another format and the digital version was what best fulfilled my needs. But I didn't know this at the beginning, only after testing other techniques," Vasconcellos says. "I always intended to use paper like that used for engravings, because of its beauty and texture. I did not want a 'photographic' paper for this work." Hence his choice of Lumijet paper that has a surface like fine watercolor paper.

Vasconcellos' work has received acclaim at home and abroad. "Marginal Pinheiros # 1, Sao Paulo, 2000," is one of seven images reproduced in Blink, published by Phaidon, in 2001. In September, a monograph with a bilingual text, entitled "Nocturnes Sao Paulo," was released in Brazil, and will be available in the United States and Europe in February 2003.

These works have elicited distinguished literary references. The following quote from "The Mirrors" by Argentine Nobel Prize-winning poet and novelist Jorge Luis Borges is the heading of "Enigma," an examination of the "Nocturnes" by Brazilian photography critic and scholar Rubens Fernandes, Jr:

God invented the nights, armed
Of dreams and forms in the mirror
So that man knows he is reflex
And vanity. Hence we are alarmed.