Fifty years after the Environmental Protection Agency sent out 100 photographers to capture a snapshot of the environment in all 50 states, senior Mia Lazar is creating an interactive website that extends the project’s mission.

Supported by UR’s Summer Undergraduate Research Program, Lazar is taking photos and recording video interviews from around the country for a multimedia site that that will expand the legacy of Documerica.

Launched in 1972 by the fledgling U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Documerica sent photographers cross-country to capture environmental conditions — with expectations they’d reshoot those sites for years. After internal challenges scrapped the project after six years, 20,000 photographs remained.

In some ways, Lazar — in a collaboration with Lauren Tilton, associate professor of digital humanities — is finishing what Documerica started.

“Those first photos created a visual baseline,” said Lazar, who spoke from a commuter train in Philadelphia, as part of the project. She was retracing the path of a photographer who documented the city’s regional rail line and downtown area.

In line with the vision for the original project, Lazar said she was “focusing on how the environment relates to and intersects with human lives in three ways: health, inequality, and everyday life.”  

Using digital mapping tools, she pinpoints where her predecessors shot their images and brings her camera to those locations. New construction blocks some vistas; erosion elsewhere means she must wade into bodies of water.

Original photos from Baltimore included images of dead fish. Lazar’s camera captured trash and snack wrappers. “It feels so surreal after spending so much time researching the photographs to go in person and see how a place has changed,” said Lazar, whose summer will include New Orleans, Houston, and Birmingham photo shoots.

Documerica aimed to record the impact of different environmental laws and policies from the birth of the EPA. Cameras documented dumps, toxic chemicals running into waterways, and polluted air.

The new interactive site, tentatively titled Digital Documerica: Picturing the Environment in 1970s America, will feature a map where users can compare the original EPA photographs with contemporary images to gauge environmental change. Lazar also interviewed Documerica photographers on their experiences. She’ll edit those recordings into video vignettes, along with expert and community member interviews, to weave across the site. 

Lazar, a math and visual and media arts practice major minoring in American Studies, placed second last year in the EPA’s Environmental Justice Video Challenge. During a semester in Prague, she honed her cinematography, sound mixing, and editing skills. 

Returning to Documerica “speaks to our current moment, where ideas about the environment, clean water, and climate crisis have been become a very politically divisive issue,” said Tilton, who is also writing a book connected to the project. “We’re trying to show this moment of great relative solidarity and collaboration to think about why the environment is important.”