LOS ANGELES — It’s not easy to find a fresh way to photograph Oprah Winfrey.

That’s why the editors of O, The Oprah Magazine, recently tried to create a shot that recalled the glory days of Ms. Winfrey’s syndicated talk show. They arranged to photograph her for its April 2013 issue as she stepped onstage to speak to 5,000 attendees at the magazine’s annual conference, a New Age slumber party of sorts for women held at the convention center here last month. When Ms. Winfrey confidently strode out dressed in a sea foam green V-neck dress and a pair of perilously tall ruby red stilettos, the audience collectively leapt to its feet and shrieked at the sight of her.

“I love you, Oprah,” some women shouted, while other fans brushed away tears. “I love you back,” she responded in her signature commanding voice. “It’s no small thing to get the dough to come here.”

Ms. Winfrey, who used to receive this kind of applause from fans five days a week, has had fewer such receptions since the talk show she hosted for 25 years ended 18 months ago. The cable network OWN, which she started with Discovery Communications, is emerging from low ratings and management shake-ups. And without a regular presence on daytime network television, she cannot steer traffic to her other products as easily as in the past. Her magazine, in particular, has experienced a decline in advertising revenue and newsstand sales since the talk show finished.

“She’s still Oprah. But she’s still struggling,” said Janice Peck, an associate professor of journalism and mass communication at the University of Colorado who wrote the 2008 book “The Age of Oprah.” “I think she’s scared, even though she’s very, very rich and she’s always going to be very, very rich. The possibility of failure, it’s quite scary.”