Gulf Oil Disaster
6-28-2010: Gulf Oil Disaster.
Oil containment booms and oil, Barataria Bay.
6-28-2010: Gulf Oil Disaster.
At \"The Source\": Discoverer Enterprise is tallest platform.
6-26-2010: Gulf Oil Disaster.
At “The Sourceâ€: Skimmer boats are visible on oil slick rising straight off seafloor 5000 feet below.
6-26-2010: Gulf Oil Disaster.
At \"The Source\": site of the BP Deepwater Horizon oil drilling catastrophe.
6-26-2010: Gulf Oil Disaster.
At \"The Source\": Methane/natural gas burns off as fireboat shoots water onto the flaring nozzles to keep them from melting or otherwise malfunctioning.
6-27-2010: Gulf Oil Disaster.
Fiddler crab covered with oil and on the verge of death; they are important food for many seabirds, Barataria Bay.
6-28-2010: Gulf Oil Disaster.
Flimsy PVC pipe anchors the containment booms in place, Barataria Bay.
6-30-2010: Gulf Oil Disaster.
Oil washed into Barataria Bay, an incredibly viscous, almost gelatinous substance.
7-1-2010: Gulf Oil Disaster.
94-year-old Cajun fisherman Eugene Barthelemy with crude oil leaked into Barataria.
7-1-2010: Gulf Oil Disaster.
Cajun oysterman Jim Phillips with crude oil leaked into Barataria Bay.
7-1-2010: Gulf Oil Disaster.
Cajun oysterman Jim Phillips and grandson on his boat, Grand Bayou dock.
7-3-2010: Gulf Oil Disaster.
Cajun oysterman Flip Tayamen, Port Sulphur.
6-26-2010: Gulf Oil Disaster.
At \"The Source\": Q4000 burns off the vast majority of the methane/natural gas, 50 million cubic feet-plus per day.
6-30-2010: Gulf Oil Disaster.
Says one Cajun fisherman who handled the oil, \"De birds, de fish, anyting dat touches dees stuff, it die. Oh yes, yes.\"
7-3-2010: Gulf Oil Disaster.
Cajun oysterman Flip Tayamen, Port Sulphur.
Gulf Oil Disaster: 2010
Ironically, the catastrophic British Petroleum oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico occurred just after a massive volcanic eruption in Iceland that filled the skies with ash and halted air travel across Europe. In contrast to the natural geologic processes that led to the eruption, the oil spill was completely preventable. Our photographs examine the disaster from multiple perspectives. Shots at "The Source," are reminiscent of naval battles in the Pacific Ocean during World War II. The raw evisceration of the earth is represented in shots of fouled, oily grass, with a useless containment boom washed up on the shore of an island. The entire episode has at its heart a bitter and evident paradox: the difference in power between the equipment of oil production and the equipment of oil protection.