@johnstanmeyer

Natural disasters, and human-made disasters like war, are beyond photography. So monstrous and destructive, no camera can present one image to describe the indescribable. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ Editing this holiday weekend, I found a forgotten series of photographs from the Indian Ocean tsunami. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ While in Banda Aceh, trying to comprehend what I was seeing, I created a collection of vertical photographs to one day stitch together into a single extreme panoramic image. That one day was this past long weekend. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ This tiny-wide speck of massive devastation in Banda Aceh is more than 4km (nearly 2mi) from the ocean's shore. Where I stood is where thousands of people once lived. Their homes were reduced to their foundations, with just one home remaining…like the mosque in Lampuuk, it had more metal rebar in its bones. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ An impossible photograph to include in the monograph unless designed accordion-style, here sharing with you this tiniest piece from what I witnessed. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ Imagine what you see here as you move across each image. Now repeat this by more than a million streets. Now multiply by few hundreds of thousands, likely a million times more. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ This is the power of nature. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ A kind reminder…Tbilisi and Bali workshops are almost full. Our gathering in the Berkshires next month does have more spaces for photographers. Please visit my Instagram bio for more details to join us this year in Massachusetts, Georgia, and Indonesia. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ #natgeo #storytelling #indonesia #BandaAceh #book