Born in Lisbon in 1930 and lives in Cascais.

His career as a geographer engineer was spent in Lisbon between the years of 1957 and 1967, and in Angola between 1967 and 1981, when he returned to Portugal.

In 1953 he bought his first camera and began to consider photography as another one of his many interests. Between 1957 and 1958 he kept a regular photographic rapport with Gérard Castello Lopes, among others, and started to practice photography more frequently and in a more committed way. In 1958 he paid photographic visits to Nazaré (with Gérard Castello Lopes) and to Andalucía. In 1958 he photographed in Italy and in Ottawa and New York the following year. He kept a regular but private photographic activity until the late 60s. In 1989, the exhibition “Fotografias (1954/69)”, which was accompanied by a catalogue and organised by the legendary “Ether, Vale Tudo Menos Tirar Olhos” Gallery in Lisbon, rescued him from oblivion. He decided to go back to photography in 1990. In 2001, the Centro Português de Fotografia (C.P.F.) published a monography on his photography work from 1954 to 1970 – “Carlos Afonso Dias, Fotografias 1954-1970” – and, in 2002, the C.P.F. organised the exhibition “Viagens Fotográficas” at Cadeia da Relação in Oporto – C.P.F.’s head-office. The show included 36 photographs from the period between 1954 and 1969 and 16 taken between 1999 and 2001. In 2003, in collaboration with C.P.F., this same exhibition was also presented in Évora (City Council of Évora, with José Manuel Rodrigues as project consultant) and in Lisbon, (Culturgest, coordinated by António Pinto Ribeiro).

He is represented in the National Photography Collection (Ministry of Culture), the Chiado Museum Photography Collection, Lisbon (IPM – Portuguese Institute of Museums) and in the PLMJ Foundation Collection.