On Sept. 16, 1969, approximately two months after Michael Zide moved to the Vineyard, 189,000 gallons of number two fuel oil spilled into the waters of Buzzard’s Bay as the barge Gloria ran aground.

As a young photographer, Mr. Zide labored to capture the moment-to-moment changes that took place. The Buzzards Bay oil spill was a sobering reminder of change and the environmental risks posed by modern living. “I temporarily put the camera aside and tried to be of some assistance to the experts who were working with much determination to save the oiled birds that had begun to come ashore — some with just enough life left in them to raise hope in the rehabilitators who were ministering to their sad states by attempting to cleanse their feathers of the poisonous dark oil from the Buzzard’s Bay spill,” Mr. Zide recalled. “Sadness and anger were the most prevalent emotions I remember from that event. Somewhere along the line, the idea of a protest march at the Boston state house took shape — and putting a number of the dead birds into gunny sacks, we left the Island and did indeed have that protest march.”

Mr. Zide spent the next 13 years working as a photographer on the Vineyard, creating a portfolio of images that recorded both a changing landscape and sense of place.

“Forty years after that Boston protest march, we have another, even more catastrophic event happening in the Gulf of Mexico. Lending the same kind of hands-on effort is very difficult for me, but I have found my own way of helping,” Mr. Zide said. Three of his Vineyard landscape images from Chilmark and Aquinnah will be sold to help raise money to aid in the Gulf relief effort. Photographic sponsors Manfrotto Distribution and Moab Paper have agreed to provide all printing paper used in the open editions and match money raised, up to the first $1,000. A portion of all print sales will go to benefit the Barataria-Terrebonne National Estuary Program, a member of the Gulf Involvement Response Team.

Mr. Zide, who has lived in western Massachusetts for the last 28 years and teaches at the Hallmark Institute of Photography in Turners Falls, will be speaking at Featherstone Center for the Arts on Wednesday, July 28 at 7 p.m. “We need to become far better stewards of our natural world,” he said.