A woman tracked down her father through photographs she had taken and discovered the heartbreaking reason for his homelessness.
Melissa had an interest in photography since she was a child. Her parents, Edward and Amanda, worked at a shop that sold photography equipment, and she used to accompany them to the store every day. She always glanced at the gadgets and fantasized about the day she’d be able to own them as a professional photographer.
However, when she went to the store one day, she noticed her father was nowhere to be found. She asked her mother if something had happened to him and if he would be joining them later at the store, but all Melissa’s mother said was that he would never return.
For illustration purposes only | Source: Unsplash
Melissa was only 12 years old at the time. As she grew older, she discovered her parents had divorced. Her mother soon left her job at the old store to work at an art gallery. Melissa accompanied her mother there every day, and as she grew older, she resolved to become a professional photographer and open her own photo gallery one day.
So after graduating from high school, she didn’t study further and instead began working as a professional photographer. For her upcoming studio, she decided to create a streetlife project depicting the gaps between different sections of society. She decided it would be best done captured in the streets where there are people ranging from the upper class to the homeless.
For ten years, Melissa went to different places to take pictures, sometimes flea markets, and sometimes in random streets.
One day when she was casually looking through her photographs, her gaze was drawn to a homeless man sitting alone on a bench. His face wasn’t clearly visible, but she had the impression she’d seen him before.
The next day, she returned to the same location and was pleasantly surprised to find the man there. She took a close-up shot this time and couldn’t believe her eyes when she saw the image for the first time.
She dashed home and dug out her childhood photos with her father. Her mother had thrown out the majority of them, but she had hidden some of them.
For illustration purposes only | Source: Unsplash
When she compared the homeless man in her photographs to her father, she realized the homeless man was none other than her father. She returned to the same location later in the evening,...
