The aerial photos represented here were taken by former military photographer Travis Michael Burns. The 2004 Indonesian Tsunami Disaster happened in the Indian Ocean, these images were taken outside of Banda Ache', Sumatra, Indonesia. Essentially the photos were taken from aboard a Black Hawk Helicopter during Humanitarian Aide Transport of food, health care and survival rations. The nature of these images is to show the magnitude of the Tsunami disaster overall. It is known that roughly 250,000 people were killed from this terrible event. The tsunami disaster event happened on the 24th of December 2004, these aerial images were taken a month later on the 25th of January, 2005. Over 1,000 photos were taken during this Humanitarian Aide mission, and simply were never released until now. The world will not understand what had happened, unless people have access to the images from the event. The disaster in 2004 was a eye opening situation for me in my life. I have always wanted to show the world these images that I took overseas. it is simply amazing the power of mother nature. with so many disaster situations which have happened so far in my life time, i simply want to use these images as an example to those who do not understand the vast ability of disaster and power which our world can produce. The disasters of our world which have happened such as hurricane katrina, the tsunami in japan, the wildfires of california, and colorado, as well as earth quake disasters of california, and mexico, and the tsunami of indonesia & indian ocean. I can not say that these could have ever been prevented, yet we as a people can learn from them, and learn from these dangers, learn the warning signs, understand these dangers and the environments for which these events take place. there is no reason for surprise, it is only the issue of humans not being well enough prepared. it is our own fault for falling victim to mother nature. we can prevent these things from happening to us, as long as we learn from our own mistakes. as a former military photographer i feel it is my human duty to ensure that people who are interested in this event should have access to these photos which i had taken so many years ago. it is a historical event which took so many lives, and has effected so many people, that it is wrong to just shuffle these images into a computer folder and never produce them to the world. i am not looking for a profit from these images, only the acceptance of the historical value of time. This event happened on our planet, and the us military did the best job it could with help of the european and asian union humanitarian aide community, to help people that needed food and rations in that area of the world, when it was needed most.I can only say that I tried as hard as possible with the limited amount of time, to produce the best quality images for the event which took place. I moved as many boxes of rationed food, and took as many photos as humanly possible during this event which i was faced with. the disaster at hand was enough to put the fear of the world and god into my heart and mind, while trying my damnest to produce the images that the world needed to see from this terrible event. hopefully in the future man will not be killed by such things a earyhquakes, tsunamis, tornadoes, and wild fires. someday humans will have the technology to avoid the dangers of our own world.