For the past five months, The Daily Iowan Documentary Workshop, in collaboration with The VII Foundation and the University of Iowa School of Journalism and Mass Communication, has produced a photo book project titled “USA 3.0,” capturing the changing political landscape in the U.S. over the past two years.
The book chronicles the 2024 presidential election cycle, documenting the political events leading up to and informing the election, as well as the events that followed the inauguration of President Donald Trump. It also includes coverage of the U.S. Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade and events as recent as the California wildfires in January 2025.
The collaboration between VII Foundation and the DI Documentary Workshop results from efforts by Danny Wilcox Frazier, the director of the Documentary Workshop and a contributing photographer with the VII Foundation.
“USA 3.0” is the first collaboration between the DI Documentary Workshop and The VII Foundation — an organization that seeks to empower emerging voices through its educational programs. Through this collaboration, students participating in the DI Documentary Workshop could work alongside established photographers such as Ron Haviv, the co-founder of The VII Foundation, and Adriana Zehbrauskas, learning from seasoned veterans.
“It’s nice for me, as someone who photographs for The Daily Iowan, to learn not only about their work but also get advice from them,” DI Visuals Editor Isabella Tisdale, who worked on the photobook as a photo editor, said. “It’s something that I probably wouldn’t have been able to do because I’m a freshman here. That’s not something that anyone can say at any school, that they’re able to collaborate with people at big agencies like this.”
Alongside learning from established journalists and photographers, workshop participants recorded in-depth interviews with the people most affected by the current political landscape.
“I talked to Joseph Silva, who took pictures of the LA wildfires, and seeing footage of people trying to save their neighbors’ homes. That was a completely different experience compared to observing it through the news,” Emma Calabro, a photo editor working on “USA 3.0” and visuals editor at the DI, said. “It feels kind of monumental for me because it’s a part of history, and I helped to create that spread and get that out there and learn about that.”
Inspired by an idea from VII Foundation photographer Jordan Gale to create a zine of the work produced by VII Foundation members documenting the election cycle, Wilcox Frazier seized the opportunity to combine his work as a photographer with his role as an educator and mentor at the DI. Gale is a former staff member at the DI.
“[The VII Foundation] is a bunch of highly committed, passionate visual storytellers who have been traveling across the country, telling stories not just of politics or politicians, but more importantly, the issues that drive politics in the U.S. from a very personal perspective,” Wilcox Frazier said. “So, we’re getting in close with people and showing how these issues impact their daily lives.”
“USA 3.0” explores just that, offering a personal perspective on the issues within the book because the photographers documenting the issues have worked alongside their subjects for decades.
One of the largest sections within “USA 3.0” focuses on the issue of immigration, which became a top issue for voters in the 2024 election and constitutes 10 pages within the book.
“Immigration, it’s the border, it’s deportation, it’s people living in the United States that are trying to get their legal status,” Marandah Mangra-Dutcher, the assistant producer, a designer of “USA 3.0,” and managing print editor of the DI, said. “Knowing that and knowing the background on that topic and putting that on a page is really important so people can see this is what this is, what we’ve done, and this is where we are.”
While issues such as immigration have received a lot of coverage from the media, “USA 3.0” hopes to move beyond simply reporting on the issues, pushing beyond sensationalism to voice the stories behind headlines and politics.
“It’s important to show how we’ve gotten to where we are and how the United States is where it is so people can understand there’s a lot of issues and topics impacting how voters voted,” Mangra-Dutcher said.
“USA 3.0” provides a personal connection to the people impacted by issues in the U.S. through its photography and brief articles within the book. It offers important context on what circumstances informed the election, including immigration, abortion rights, and gender-affirming care, showing the real impact these issues had on the lives of Americans.
“I hope what people mostly get out of the book is that photography has this amazing ability to help people understand from a deeply personal place the commonality of our existence in society,” Wilcox Frazier said. “I hope that people are going to see themselves in the photos and see all that we have in common instead of a continuation of headlines and social media posts and cable news that’s really just about division.”