Elaine Litherland

DOCUMENTARY WORK

Comic daredevil Bello Nock crosses over the Circus Sarasota big top via a high wire in a publicity stunt to promote upcoming performances. "It was windy, it was dangerous and it was difficult- for my hair," said Nock, who wears a famously vertical coif.
  
Hands lightly touch the face and body of Lexi Antorino as parishioners surround the three-year-old during a service at Church on the Rock in Palmetto. At age two Lexi suffered a brain injury after a poorly installed swing set collapsed onto her tiny body.
  
Nick Devens and Krysti Harkeli kiss under lantern light during the Lemon Bay High School prom in Boca Grande, Fla.
     
  
The Aztek Riderz, a lowrider car club, host a Mexican-American car club show at the Shopper's Bazaar Mall in Bradenton, Fla.
  
Don Casto rests his head in his hands as Casey Key residents argue over possible incorporation during a crowded public hearing in Florida.
   
Port Charlotte residents Wayne and Kim Agnew, from left, and tour guide Tysa Alvis, right, wade bareback into Bradenton's Palma Sola Bay at dusk during a Beach Horses tour.
     
  
Raven Peters, 10, as Cruella De Vil, and Kelsey Smith, 8, wait to get on stage with the rest of the 101 Dalmations, in a Sarasota, Fla. costume costest.
   
Pine Ridge Middle School eighth-graders Caroline Woodward, (top step) Tara Black, Heather Morrison, (second step left to right) Laura Sterfanelli and Katy Tinney (bottom step left to right) sun themselves on the steps at the YMCA pool during their last day of school party.
   
Joe Lieberman reacts to an unimpressed "Yeah, sure" response from a daycare child after the Conneticut senator suggested that he read the group a story during a 2003 campaign stop preceeding the NH Presidential Primary election.
     
  
Juanita Butte, from left, and Mary Crumbly, right, of the American Ideals Foundation, offer comfort to Sheila Cobb as Cobb sees for the first time an artist's rendering of her son, Christopher Cobb, who was killed in action while serving in the 2nd Batallion, 4th Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division in Iraq.
   
Tiana Norris, 5, bottom left, Shile Ringley, 6, bottom right, play with other campers during swim time at the Newtown pool in Sarasota County where funding cuts have been considered for community pools.
   
Ruth Olden prays for her husband of 58 years, Robert, during one of several emergency room visits to Concord Hospital.
     
  
April Gillich, 7, and her brother Mason, 11, left, are bride and groom on a Lemon Bay Historical Soceity float during the 52nd Annual Pioneer Days Parade in Englewood, Fla.
   
Rebekah Cloud, center, and her friends, Allison Speed, from left, and Reba Evans, far right, get ready together for the Sarasota High School homecoming dance .
   
Bulimia caused 24-year-old Kathryn Drouin's weight to drop to 70 pounds, and stealing food led to a prison sentence. Eventually Drouin could eat $60-70 in one sitting. "I would go through tons of food. The next day I would have to do it again," Drouin says, "I kept going to different grocery stores. I got away with it for a long time."
     
  
Aspiring models line up to get their measurements taken at Model Camp USA in Orlando, Fla. where girls from across the country attended the three-day boot camp.
   
Professional skimmer, Dion Davis, bottom left, instructs a group of aspiring boarders during the third summer session of Beach Camp at Siesta Key Public Beach.
   
Emily Wyatt flies from a swinging trapeze during a dress rehearsal for the PAL Sailor Circus at the longtime circus arena.
     
  
Tyron Parker carefully removes the hide from an American Alligator at Gators R Us in Dade City, one of only a few places where gators can be legally processed in central Florida.
   
Samantha Trudino, from left, Amber Lopez and Liliainy Gelacio submerge themselves underwater during a free pool day in Immokalee, Fla.
   
Tamara Garrison sprays down one of several tickets booths as workers with The Mighty Bluegrass Shows of Tampa prepare for the opening of the Manatee County Fair.
     
  
Anneli Lukk, from left, and Theresa Kalin, far right, use maniquins to work on one of 90 perms that the new cosmotology students have to complete for certification at Fashion Focus Hair Academy in Gulf Gate.
  
Gloria Ruiz is seen through her destroyed mobile home as she folds up some of her belongings in Cleweston, Fla. after Hurricane Wilma tore through the small agricultural community.
   
Esther Purvis, left, and Bill Dollard, right, reset the board at the Shuffle Club of Palmetto, Fla.
     
  
Ruth and Virgil Batcher sit inside the bathtub of their Naples home, a restored barn transported from Indiana in the late 70's.
  
Seven-month-old Henry Reese, center, reacts to mom, Jenny Seifert, left, during a Summer Itty Bitty Music Class at Little Bookworms in Lakewood Ranch.
   
Jason Groselle, a coach with the Hiram College swim team, is surrounded by steam rising from the warm water of heated pools at the Selby Aquatics Center in Sarasota, Fla. during pre-dawn, subfreezing swim practices for U.S. Masters swimmers and visiting colleges down for what is usually a warm winter practice session.
     
  
Judi Bjork brushes a mud mask onto nine-year-old Kaci Johnson's face during a spa party at Lil' Divas and Dudes Salon and Day Spa for kids in Lakewood Ranch.
   
Fifth-graders, including Santiago Cruz, 10, from left, Jorge Gonzales, 10, and Gloria Duran, 11, out of frame at right, salute visitors as they arrive to Rowlett Elementary School in Bradenton, Fla. for the school's 8th annual Veterans Day Celebration.
   
Marissa Smith waves out from the Miss Venice Softball team float during the 34th annual Venice Holiday Parade.
     
  
Audrey Dobowik wrings the shampoo out of her horse's tail during the 64th Annual Deerfield Fair Horse Show in New Hampshire.
   
Ringling College of Art and Design student, Josh Garcia, gets a look at a Venetian inspired mask at LTM Party in Sarasota, Fla.
  
A cooler filled with dead alligators is a day's work for Florida trapper Chad Wright at his processing site, Gators R Us, in Dade City, Fla. In an effort to control an escalating gator population, estimated at around one million, Florida legalized alligator hunting in 1988 with an open harvest season by lottery in the fall of each year.
     
  
The wet suit of lifelong Cortez resident, Kenny Jenkins, hangs in the sun to dry after Jenkins returned a boating trip. A longtime commercial fisherman and a charter captain, among other trades, is heavily active into staying in, around or near the water. "If it has to do with fishing, I'm into it," said Jenkins. The Cortez sign hanging atop their shed was found floating in the Gulf of Mexico, along Bradenton Beach, after an un-named storm.
   
Workers are silhoetted through shade cloth as rebuilding begins on greenhouses at The Plant Farm in eastern Sarasota County, Fla. where a confirmed F1 tornado damaged the longtime nursery.
   
Carolee Durham, from left, her sister, Eileen Mackey, twins Josephine Wallace and Catherine Campbell and Ollie Alderman share a laugh together at Ollie's home in Fort Lauderdale, a 1925 house hand-built by her father that survived the legendary1926 hurricane there. The ladies, who all still live in close distance from one another, grew up in the tent cities together during the first Florida boom.
     
  
Rebekah Cloud, 17, and her older sister, Maggie, 18, walk toward a gazebo near their Sarasota, Fla. home as family and friends gather for pictures. Cloud has scioliosis, a distinctive characteristic of VATER Syndrome, a diagnosis that came at birth that has since required some two dozen surgeries.
   
Members of the Bradenton Twirling Academy, including Brianna Bunhan, 14, from left, Kayla McKenna, 15, and Marissa Fry, 12, warm up before the De Soto Heritage Festival Children's Parade in Palmetto, Fla.
   
Protesters, riding fake osteriches and dressed as Senators John Kerry, left, and John Edwards, stage themselves outside a NH Primary debate in 2003.
     
  
Kassidy Kimball, 5, attends a longtime tea for young girls at the Penacook Branch Library in New Hampshire.
  
ReAhja Shaw, 8, from left, and her bestfriend, Madeline Hazuda, 7, share secrets while getting dual pedicures at a kids beauty spa in Lakewood Ranch, Fla.
   
Alexandra Ruiz, left, and dancers stretch out during class at Diane Partington's Studio of Classical Ballet in Ellenton, Fla.
     
  
New College of Florida student Lisa VanTieghem interned at the Marie Selby Botanical Gardens where she researched the ethnobotanical aspects of the plants there, outlining some of their less known medicinal properties and uses.
   
Mickey Fitzpatrick is seen through signs he has posted at a roadside prayer station along the Palma Sola Causeway in Bradenton, Fla. where Fitzpatrick has been asked to remove the religious banners.
   
An upside-down turkey looks out from a metal cone where he awaits a visit from the self-described "grim reaper", Alejandro House, not pictured, at Ben Pate's Free Range Turkey Farm in Ruskin, Fla. as workers rush to fill Thanksgiving orders.
     
  
Riley O'Neill walks around with hats on her head, leftover from a birthday party celebrated while on the road during the Deerfield Fair Horse Show in New Hampshire. Gianna Allen, 11, wanders in her saddle suit while waiting for her competition class to be called.
   
Bee Ridge Florist's assistant Galen Finnegan decorates an archway with flowers for the wedding of Sarasota residents, Robin Perrtree and Frank Unger, as thunderstorms threaten Lido Key.
  
Three-year-old Tiannah Potter, foreground, peeps out of a container outside the pop-up camper where her family, including little brother, Tyler, 2, background, are staying during a trip with the Florida Pop Up Campers at Myakka State Park .