Our river cruise dramatically changed its character as we left the Mississippi River Delta behind and moved into the Gulf of Mexico. We followed a prescribed course through the Gulf from New Orleans to Pensacola, Florida. We were rarely out of sight of the massive off shore oil platforms that loomed through the mist. I placed two of them into this frame as we cruised past them at dusk. I contrast both scale and visibility here. One is large, the other small. One is clearly defined while the other seems lost in the fog. A flame glows at the top of a tower on the closest platform, flaring away unusable gas drawn to the surface along with oil. Oil platforms such as these may be essential economic machines, however the flame glowing above this tower reminds us of the risks involved when fire and oil are present. Not far from here, a BP platform exploded in 2010, killing eleven people, and polluting the Gulf of Mexico with twenty million gallons of oil – the worst spill in US history.