Somewhere in her early career, Urness began studying the work of Edward S. Curtis, whose mission was to document Indigenous peoples as a ‘vanishing race.’ His black and white and sepia toned portraits of Native subjects in their traditional regalia comprise some of the earliest and most revered photographic records of Native Americans in existence. In viewing Curtis’ images, something clicked for Urness. Rather than seeing the works as relics of the past, she saw herself and her own tribal members in those images. She felt an instant calling to pick up her camera and be the one behind the lens, a modern Indigenous woman, capturing and telling the visual narrative of Native peoples and cultures not vanishing, but very much alive today. 'Native Americans: Keeping the Traditions Alive', was born from this inspiration. In this project she photographs tribes across the US, with continued fascination in documenting and exploring the nuances of each tribe’s expression of their culture and traditions in connection to their ancestral landscape and habitat.