Doing as Oprah Says

So I took a little break from Hemingway (257 pages of a break to be exact), and picked up Living Oprah from the library yesterday. I finished it today and knew I was going to blog about it before I even got halfway done.

http://www.robynokrant.com

It’s about a woman’s experiment in doing every single thing Oprah says, whether it’s on her show, in her magazine or on her website – for one year. Wow! Talk about dedication. I was hooked — and the book is a fascinating, super fun, down-to-earth analysis about everything the talk show host says, does and promotes and how it all affects the author’s life (regardless of whether she likes it).

As the author states, Oprah is a powerful force in our culture with everything from makeup to movies to books to the presidential election. I like Oprah, but I’m not an Opraholic. I don’t intentionally sit down to watch her show – simply because I don’t have time and have a short attention span with most TV. But she’s an amazing humanitarian whose given tons and tons to Africa, Katrina and Angel Network charities. Yet her book club selections are ones I never read (I don’t think) because they were her picks. (But my recent books have included Oprah picks eat pray love and Eckhart Tolle‘s books).

With photography, I know I could not follow exactly what someone else does to a tee. I imagine – as this author did (post-experiment) – I would enjoy some of it and let go of the rest of it – and be original.

Cover Photo in American Cancer Society’s National Magazine

In early January I met Lynn Nguyen in downtown Iowa City who shared with me how normal her life has been – with one “real” eye.

She was diagnosed with retinoblastoma, a cancer that resulted in doctors removing her right eye when she was only 1.5 years old. Soon after she got a prosthetic eye – what she’s had all of her life.

As a senior last year at Iowa City High School Lynn was applying for scholarships and saw one offered by the American Cancer Society. She applied, and won a $1,000 scholarship. Lynn told me all this in a very matter-of-fact way: This is how it is, no big deal (except the scholarship money, of course).

But the ACS was so impressed with Lynn it featured her on the cover for a story about young survivors of childhood cancer in its current issue of Triumph. It’s the ACS official magazine for donors who give at least $250 annually, and is sent three times a year to more than 300,000 people nationwide.

I was THRILLED to photograph the story. And this past week, Lynn and I were excited to get our copies of the magazine in the mail.

Cover of Spring 2010 Triumph magazine

Inside, pgs. 14-15

Pg. 16

Over her Thanksgiving break Lynn had surgery so the tissue behind her old prosthetic could heal (hence the bandage in these photos) – making it necessary for a new eye to better fit her face as she gets older. Lynn recently received her new prosthetic, and is continuing life as a busy freshman at the University of Iowa.