Disaster response: Instructor Michael Zide raises money for Gulf recovery

Forty years after photographer Michael Zide captured images of the Buzzard's Bay oil spill off the coast of Martha's Vineyard, he is putting his artistic skills to use to raise money for the Barataria-Terrebonne National Estuary Program (BTNEB), a non-profit member of the Gulf Response Involvement Team (GRIT). In collaboration with the National Audubon Society, the Nature Conservancy and the Coalition to Restore Coastal Louisiana, BTNEB is spearheading the effort to save wildlife, marshes and estuaries affected by the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

Three of Zide's landscape images from Martha's Vineyard will be sold through September via an online sale to raise money to aid in the Gulf relief effort. "I chose the images from Martha's Vineyard because they're coastal and it's a marine disaster," said Zide, a former resident of the island, who now lives in Amherst.

Fifty percent of the sale price from each of the three prints of Zide's photographssold will be donated to BTNEB and GRIT. Each archival paper printed, matted and signed image will cost $125. The purchase is not tax deductible, Zide says.

Zide is partnering in his fundraising effort with companies with which he has worked over the years, generally in the photographic industry, asking them to match the dollars he raises. "The goal is to try and match what little I'm hoping to raise, and I'm hoping it snowballs," he said. Manfrotto Distribution, a subsidiary of the Vitec group headquartered in England, will match the first $1,000 raised through Zide's print sales. Moab Paper, a line of archival, digital imaging papers based in Los Angeles, New York, and Moab, Utah, will provide all the printing paper.

To purchase a print, visit www.michaelzide.com and click on "store." For information about BTNEP, visit www.btnep.org.