The hardest part, she found, was anticipating baldness. "I bought $800 worth of wigs before I even started chemo," says Hunsicker. "I was so worried about being bald."

By the time she actually started losing her hair, though, Hunsicker realized that it wasn't her she was worried about after all. "I was worried about how my being bald was going to make my friends feel, was it going to make them uncomfortable? "I didn't want that."

Hunsicker was perplexed at her own response, at her focus on others not on herself. But as she underwent treatment and talked to other women in chemotherapy, she found that her response was not at all unusual. "Many, many women told me that losing their hair was the hardest part of chemo," she says. "Most women were worried about what people would think. Some women would even put on a scarf before answering the front door to accept a Federal Express package," she laughs.
Ultimately, Hunsicker decided not to wear scarves, bandanas, or wigs. "I was defiant." She wanted people to see that her bald head was a part of treatment, and that she wasn't a freak. "I could have a cast on my leg or braces on my teeth." It was just a temporary state. In fact, she only wore a wig once - to attend a friend's wedding."

"But it was always on my mind: Why was I so worried about losing my hair?" says Hunsicker. Why were all the women she talked to so worried about it? They all should have been focusing on surviving a potentially terminal disease. "I decided that something really had to be done about our perception of cancer," she says. People needed to see cancer through different eyes. "I wanted to take the dirty little secret - cancer - and put it in front of everybody's face, to familiarize people with the image, to make it less shocking, to make it safer," she says. If people could see the bald head of chemotherapy patients, it would become normal - as normal as any other sort of medical treatment.

Hunsicker decided that the issue wasn't so much vanity as fear. "Most of us aren't exposed to illness. We don't know what to do or say around it." We are afraid, she says, that the next time illness strikes it might be us. "So we shrink away from it."
Hunsicker decided that women with a cancer diagnosis should be able to focus on themselves and their medical and psychological needs, rather than on their appearance. "I knew a woman who was so afraid of losing her hair that she decided not to do chemo altogether," Hunsicker says. "Now she's dead."

Seeing with New Eyes

About 650,000 women a year get cancer, according to Hunsicker, and the most lose their hair due to aggresive chemotherapy. What could Hunsicker - as one person - do about the society's view of cancer?

The best way, Hunsicker figured, to change the way people see is through photography. Photographers make their living by making people look good on paper.

So, why couldn't they apply those skills to women bald from chemotherapy treatment? "Photography is the best way to see ourselves - and to change how we see ourselves," says Hunsicker.

Six years of work led to Turning Heads: Portraits of Grace, Inspiration and Possibilities (Press On Regardless, 2006), a 144-page collection of gorgeous and inspiring glossy photographs of women who have lost their hair due to chemotherapy. Many, but not all of the 57 women pictured in the volume have experienced breast cancer. It is important to Hunsicker, though, that the book be all-inclusive, portraying women of different ages, races, socioeconomic strata, and stages and types of cancer.
The photos show women of all sizes, shapes, and colors, demonstrating once again that cancer does not discriminate. A state supreme court justice presides over a session; a construction worker poses with her colleagues at a work site; a commercial designer sprawls on an elephant; a longshorewoman poses with her colleagues at a construction site; and two women have their arms around ET-like aliens. Each photo is accompanied by a short essay about the woman's feelings toward chemo, treatment, and cancer. "Telling other people's stories has been my career," says Hunsicker.

But the goal is not to make women feel that they must walk around bald. Hunsicker just wants to broaden the choices. "We should be able to do whatever we want without feeling that our looks are making others uneasy," suggests Hunsicker.

A multi-media expert, Hunsicker has written and photographed for the Associated Press, directed children's films (The Frog Prince and Oddball Hall), and produced television programs (Over Easy, for PBS/CPB). She brought her myriad talents to locating interested photographers and women in treatment - and to conceptualizing and orchestrating the project overall.

Hunsicker was able to garner a total of 57 leading journalistic and fashion photographers as well as several make-up artists to contribute time and energy to the project. Hunsicker is donating some of the proceeds to fund cancer research.

"I initially had in mind to show off women as works of art," says Hunsicker. But then, as the project progressed, she simply followed the lead of the photographers. Many of the photographers worked with their subjects to design the shots.

Some of the photographs are highly posed - such as Harry Langdon's cover shot, which shows a nude woman reclining on Oriental carpets. Similarly, Kevin Lynch's photo of a naked woman whose body is overlaid with geometric shadows, creating an image that is simultaneously realistic and abstract.

Some of the photos are more playful. David Stoeckline's photograph shows a 49-year-old woman standing bald-headed amid tough-looking men in cowboy hats. Kenn Longg's picture portrays a woman's reliance on her husband: Mimi Moran stands on a golf course flanked by 19 photos of her husband, drifting in the sky, which she describes in her essay as "the team behind me."

Others are more realistic in nature, such as Melissa Ann Pinney's photograph of a woman frolicking on the front lawn with her three young children and Ethan Kaminsky's photo of a woman whizzing by on her Harley. And John Nation's artwork shows a nun playing poker on a rolling lawn.

To find photographers, Honicker started with a few who agreed, then showed their work and mock-ups to other photographers. "I worked my way up a golden thread," she explains. David Hume Kennerly, Pulitzer Prize winner; Douglas Kirkland, fashion photographer; and Michael Childers, chronicler of celebrities, were particularly helpful in opening doors.

Finding women who would agree to share their chemo images was, perhaps, more difficult. Hunsicker began by speaking with the women who were being treated in her own hospital. She talked with everyone she knew and even approached women in chemotherapy clinics. Many women were nervous about participating. But more than 57 women, living coast to coast, were willing and eager. "I ended up with more photographs than I could use," says Hunsicker.

Many women were very generous with their time. "A few women were in the final stages of their lives, but they gave me a whole day for shooting," says Hunsicker, impressed by the gift. "It changed my life, knowing how much goodness there's out there."

"Women are fantastic," says Hunsicker. "We go on, we are women, teachers, workers, and are also being treated for cancer. The world doesn't stop for us - and we don't stop for the world."

The women whose images are captured in this book are strikingly attractive. We should be able to see their beauty not just through the lenses of the photographer, but also through our own eyes. But these incredible photographs, these head-turning shots, are a good place to start.

Turning Heads: Turning Heads: Portraits of Grace, Inspiration,
and Possibilities by Jackson Hunsicker, published by Press On Regardless (May 28, 2006) is available through Amazon.com
or through the Independent Publishers Group.