What started as a small project on her community’s elders has since morphed into an ambitious attempt to document citizens of each of the more than 560 federally recognized Native American tribes in the United States. She has driven more than 60,000 miles to meet with native people: doctors and tribal leaders, artists and entertainers. She wants the endeavor, called Project 562, to be an extensive and accurate visualization of Native Americans, offering a perspective often missing from American history lessons.

“People often ask me why I don’t photograph real Indians,” said Ms. Wilbur, who marked documenting her 180th tribe in Phoenix last week. “But the people that I photograph are real Indians. These are my people.”

The “real” Indians Ms. Wilbur referred to were often portrayed in romanticized images most are used to seeing — quaint people in feathered headdresses, wrapped in colorful blankets or clutching bows and arrows.

Her work often sparks a conversation about Edward Curtis, the portrait photographer who, a century earlier, embarked on a mission to photograph native people of the American West. But Ms. Wilbur said the differences between their works are stark — Mr. Curtis, a white male who carried his own props to shoots, often paired tools and clothing from the wrong tribes. He also did not know the names of many of his subjects.