Images captured by Seattle-based photographer Natalie Fobes from the Exxon Valdez oil spill were included as exhibits for plaintiff arguments at the U.S. Supreme Court. Fobes had also been a witness for plaintiffs in the original 1994 trial against Exxon in Anchorage.

Fobes was one of the initial photographers to reach the spill in 1989. Her work was published in National Geographic magazine in August 1989 and January 1990, and has since been published in major publications worldwide.