While I was out one night at Pier 39 with Doberman we hit this one little shop on the street. It was your regular tourist shop and all, although what caught our eye was that they did custom dog tags. Doberman had a thing for dog tags as he got his during FC and all so we decided to check out this little spot. While we were waiting to get them done we lightly browsed the merchant's store, and I couldn't help but notice him work at one point.


Here the man is doing a customer's name in colored points, but with this is that he is using objects to make the name, like a bird or a waterfall, etc. It's not an uncommon thing to see around but still, I had to capture this. Here is a man, and maybe his son or some relative running a small tourist shop. They know enough English to speak to their customers and get buy. When I looked at this man at work it made me think of the expenses one goes through to keep this shop up, the products, and then the expenses of holding a family or his own. It almost reminded me of the movie An American Tail which talks about immigrants coming to America with the thought or in some cases illusion that life is better here as far as work, homes, and etc. Some cases it is, some it's not but, but from what I have experienced going south of the border to my home country it is a better life financially for the least, but as far as people wise the people in Guatemala were naturally kinder and more heart welcoming. Anyways I digress.

So I can only imagine this man's life outside his shop. Thinking of him raising a family, wife and kids, what his home must be like, how is it cared for, do they have enough food, clothes, essentials. So on and so on. You look at the trinkets, nick nacks, and other things in his shop where your casual resident wouldn't find any value, like buying a magnet of the Golden Gate Bridge or Alcatraz, etc. Tourists on the other hand might consider as to bring back a little bit of the place back home, but even when I visited Maryland and his the DC area with Canis I couldn't find any reason to purchase such things at a local tourist store in a museum. But point in hand is to imagine how hard this man works and how hard his life may be, easy or not from a previous life at a distant country. What ambitions he might have had to give up to run this small tourist store so that his kids might have a better future than what he has now. Or, I could be all wrong and he can as content as can be running such a store and it might have been his ambition to begin with. But just this image struck such a pose with me in my head.

Well I was bored today and I was like, "You know I have a great itch to keep using my new camera... I should take Syrus somewhere today". And so I thought Pier 39 would be a nice place to visit as he hasn't been there himself just yet. It's a Sunday so I figured there would be lots of people to admire him. So it all works out, and I get to shed a bit more of the big city with some of you.