Home of 70 million people, Iran is a country of contradictions. The Islamic revolution in 1979 made Iran the modern world's first theocracy. And yet its society remains among the most diverse and tolerant in the Middle East. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has provoked global outrage over his threats toward Israel and denial of the Holocaust. Meanwhile, Tehran's pursuit of nuclear power and suspected meddling in Iraq have put it on a collision course with the U.S. But among Iranians, there remain real questions about whether their leaders are imperiling the country's future.

Photographer Paolo Woods spent several months in Iran chronicling the lives of a people caught between tradition and modernity. His images reveal a society in the throes of change - and, in that sense, one not so different from our own.