McCaw uses the sun to literally burn through photographic paper during extremely long exposures, creating works where elemental forces physically destroy and transform the photographic surface in a process directly comparable to Brandt's Burnout series.

Polke subjected photographic and painted surfaces to chemical and elemental processes, allowing destruction and unpredictable natural reactions to become the authoring force of the final image, much like Brandt's investigation into photography and elemental transformation.

Johnson documents landscapes shaped by industrial and natural destructive forces, and his experimental photographic approach to depicting environmental burnout and decay shares the same thematic and material tension found in Brandt's Burnout series.