PRINCE WILLIAM SOUND, NORTHERN KNIGHT ISLAND DEALTH MARSH, 2002
Michael Conti, Anchorage

“This piece is a montage of images that I made while photographing a scientific expedition to Knight Island.  The purpose of the trip was to gather foraging data on sea otters that had been living in a heavily oiled area of Prince William Sound, 13 years after the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill.  The images were made in Bay of Isles.  That is my own footprint in the intertidal muck of Death Marsh, a small cove at the end of the bay where oil can still be seen. The Landscape image was made in the November morning light from an unnamed island near the mouth of the bay looking northeast towards Bligh Reef and Valdez Arm.The Chemical symbols represent several aromatic hydrocarbons indicative of crude oil that remain scattered in the intertidal sediments of  areas impacted by the spill.”

Michael Conti is an artist working in both still photography and digital video.  He currently lives in Anchorage, Alaska where he works as a professional photographer and professor of Photography and Art at the University of Alaska Anchorage. His work has been shown in museums and galleries around the State of Alaska.