The True Story of Gina

Photographer

João Coelho

Category

Editorial Photography - Feature Story

Company

Submission Group

Amateur

Year

2026

Country / Region:

Portugal

Gina is a woman who makes her living by night. Every day she leaves her house in the late afternoon to sell her body in the dimly lit alleys of the suburb where she lives. She doesn't do it because she likes it or wants to, she was simply forced into it by a life of which she has almost no good memories or moments that made her happy. Tired of collecting disillusions and mismatches with men who sought nothing more than to use her, she gave up fighting against a destiny that seemed determined to grant her only the same days as the ones she was trying to forget. She quickly plunged into a downward spiral that led her permanently into the nightlife and prostitution. The line between the life at night and the world of drugs is very faint and Gina crosses it very early. Seductive and always nurturing, the drug was always available to give her the comfort she sought in times when discouragement or despair spoke louder. When she returns home at dawn, the provocative and defiant Gina turns into a different person. Now she is just a fragile and sensitive woman living alone in a rented room with a zinc-plate roof in an obscure quarter of the city. A life spent entirely at night has taken Gina further and further away from her son, forcing her to leave him with his mother during the week. This is another sorrow she has to live with, and she tries to regain the lost time on Sundays, the only day she can be with her son all day and when she can finally become a mother again.

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