Pailin Wedel

Moments

"Hannah" -- her mother did not want her full name revealed -- plays with flowers she picked off of the fence at the 8 Inn at St. Petersburg, Florida. Hannah's mother moved from Orlando and cannot afford permanent housing. Hannah likes to play around the hotel while her mother waitresses.
   
Maricruz and her chilren, Lizbeth and Andy, sit with their aunt, Nelly, in her home on February 14th 2007. The family did not want their last name revealedbecause they fear arrest. Andy was acting up and the women were trying to calm him down. Maricruz's husband was taken from a Smithfield Foods Inc. plant because he is an illegal immigrant. Now Maricruz and her son live in Lumberton with Maricruz's sister-in-law, Nelly.
   
Thousands gathered in Phuket, Thailand, to light candles for those who died during the 2004 Asian Tsunami, which swept through the tourist town less than a week ago.
     
  
   
Students at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill bounce a ball to each other during their graduation ceremony.
   
Sonia Vera Vera washes her mother's hair twice a week.
     
  
A police officer is the first to arrive on the scene of a fire which burns through the Token of Love ministry building in Durham, North Carolina.
   
Guadalupe breaks down during her speech at an informal press conference in Red Springs on February 7th, 2007. Police arrested her grandfather, an illegal immigrant, at the Smithfield Foods Inc. plant where he worked.
   
Paul Marinaccio puts vasaline on this face, preparing himself for a training session at Fit 24, a gym in Raleigh, North Carolina. Marinaccio is training for a fight against the current 1st runner-up boxing champion on April 18th; the fight will be shown on ESPN. Marinaccio is also turning forty that day. He says, "I feel fine and I'm enjoying the moment."
     
  
Deepika Bhatt, far right, applies henna to bride-to-be Siobhan Pandy two days before her wedding at her fiance's parents' house in Cary, North Carolina. (Left to right, clockwise: Ria Shah, 5, a friend of the family from New Jersey; Khushali Dalal, 8, daughter of a family friend from Ohio; Vijay Kansupada, a family friend from Georgia; Hima Daal, the groom's cousin from South Carolina, and Shruthi Shah, Ria's mother, and a friend of the family from New Jersey.) "Mehndi" is when the bride at a Hindu wedding has henna, a brown herbal paste that stains the skin, drawn on her hands and feet.
   
Police academy graduate Donna Hicks, left, wipes tears away from her face after getting her police badge at the Raleigh Police Department's 90th session graduation ceremony at the Progress Energy Center for the Performing Arts on March 20th 2008.
  
Rodney Hines, also known as the "No-Hands King," owns several bikes, one of which is a pink girl's bike. He says the pink bike grabs people's attention. Hines rides bikes without using his hands. He wants to do a 3000-mile ride without hands to raise money and support the troops. He says, "Everybody wants a place in history."
     
  
A firefighter enters a burning building on the corner of Roxboro and Delafield Ave in Durham, North Carolina. The fire burned through the roof and most of the second floor of the building. The building housed the Token of Love ministry.
   
Barack Obama and his wife Michelle celebrates at Reynolds Coliseum in Raleigh after winning the North Carolina Primary election.
   
Jiyai Shin reacts after her missing a putt on the 18th hole at the Women's U.S. Open on July 1st 2007 at Pine Needles, Southern Pines. She came in sixth with an even for the tournament.
     
  
Jinda Wedel helps her grandmother Lorraine Wedel walk on Venice beach in Florida. Lorraine has lived with Parkinson's disease for several decades.
   
Wallace McDade, 12, left, Ryan McNeil Jr., 14, middle,and Jerry Williams, 15, right, skateboard on the corner of Parker Street and Mayview Road on a Sunday afternoon. The teenagers live in apartments on Mayview. The Oberlin neighborhood is a neighborhood where freed slaves were able to buy their first home. Now developers are paying hundreds of thousands of dollars for the same piece of land.
   
Ron Paul gathers this thoughts before walking to the podium for a rally at Carmichael Auditorium in Chapel Hill, NC.