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Photo shoot to raise funds, help inspire kids who have cancer

Posted at 10:17 PM, Apr 12, 2014
and last updated 2014-04-14 09:42:55-04

SALT LAKE CITY -- It’s Tristan Chiderster's dream to be a professional football player, and it’s photographer Jonathan Diaz’s job to make that fantasy a reality.

“His dream is to do something that a lot of people would look at and say that's never going to happen," Diaz said. "I figure, why not? Why can't it happen for him?"

Doctors diagnosed Tristan with an aggressive bone cancer, which eventually took his leg.

“It was devastating,” said the child’s mother, Tiffany Chiderster. “Like many cancer kids he processed it, and I swear the next words out of his mouth were, ‘I want to play football again.’”

The photographs depict Tristan as a University of Utah football player, a dream he said he’ll catch one day.

Diaz’s is working on a collection of photographs called “Anything Can Be,” which features young cancer survivors.

“Each kid has their own dream, so we have a girl that wants to be a fairy, we have a girl that wants to be a super hero, a kid that wants to fly on a dragon someday, Tristan, who wants to play for the 49ers someday,” Diaz said.

The photographs will be compiled into a photo book that will be sold to raise money for Millie’s Princess Foundation, an organization that helps families deal with childhood cancer.

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