The media response to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill was overwhelming, and many hours were devoted to coverage of the spill and its impact. This body of work, and the accompanying motion piece "Stigma Without the Sheen", looks at the Gulf states three months after the spill, in July of 2010, during what is typically one of the busiest periods of tourism in the region. The misconception that oil had saturated the Gulf of Mexico and that all beaches along the Gulf were contaminated kept many tourists away from the Gulf coast states. Those tourists who did venture to the shore found the beaches nearly deserted, while local businesses faced a staggering blow to their bottom line.