German-born, New York-based artist Sonja Braas creates scenes of natural disasters such as earthquakes and fires in her studio to photograph them in a serene and minimalist way. Drawing from 18th century landscape painting, Braas applies the compositional rules of painting in her images, subordinating reality by the ideal representation of nature. Although Braas lessened the threat of these brutal forces of nature somewhat due to the absence of any endangered, some of the images still remind strongly of the sublime paintings from Romantics such as J.M.W. Turner.