| Dulce Granja Carneiro was a brazilian photographer with an extensive career, but little known, because she destroyed her collection and that is the direction of this article. This act by the photographer sparks a debate around photography and memory. This article was interested in understanding the effects of this act of destruction on the discussion about photographic language. Affiliated to Foto Cine Clube Bandeirantes, in S & atilde;o Paulo (Brazil), a place for the creation of photographic techniques, Dulce soon became a professional, starting to develop her architectural photographs and portraits. Through Carlo Ginzburg's concept of trace and the contributions of other photography historians and theorists (such as Joan Fontcuberta, Vil & eacute;m Flusser, Arlindo Machado, Helouise Costa) who demarcate the photographic debate as a record and beyond it, this article mapped the traces left by Dulce Carneiro and proposed an analysis of them, in addition to the effect of her disappearance through the absence of her photographs. Given the scarcity of materials, the article relied on speculation about her traces, interviews and referential authors in the philosophy of photography to propose a reflection on her trajectory, her importance and her memory, without it being a theoretical concern to discover the reason for the destruction of her collection.