I picked up this pendant necklace back while interning in San Francisco in 2010. At the time, it was just a neat little trinket, carved by a young man sitting in a stall at the Ferry Plaza Farmers Market, and I happened to be in the right place at the right time to spot one with a paw print. It was rather impressive watching him sit there with a hair-thin coping saw blade and almost microscopic drill bit, creating each of his pieces of art with the utmost care by hand.

What I didn't realize at the time is that this pendant is poetic. It came from a coin. One coin out of billions or trillions. But, it is unique from the rest of them. Like each of us, it is a little bit different from the rest. It came from the same place, still has the same general shape, but it has been changed to be one-of-a-kind, and there never has, and never will be, another one exactly like it.

Shot with a Canon PowerShot SX120 IS, f/32, 1/400 sec, ISO 80, 6mm focus.

Minor color correction in post processing.