Fun fact: all the photos used in the examples are stock photo images because "minimalism" as defined by the author is actually "leave two thirds of the image open for copy"

The stock photo industry (as well as the advent of digital photography in general) has pushed the definition this way because nobody really remembers. There was a time when you sold your photography by putting it in a gallery or putting it in a magazine, not putting it in a stock library where you made four cents every time someone put a quote in front of it.

Minimalism in photography has never really gotten a fair shake because the art community hasn't really acknowledged fine art photography outside Cindy Sherman (who is not minimalist by any stretch). But if you were to point a finger at where it started and what it was prior to the "pay me 4 cents" movement, you'd point at Man Ray and the Dadaists.

(Spanish Melon, Raoul Hausmann)

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That said, I appreciate the photo challenge and I appreciate the attempts to educate, even if in this particular instance I think you were betrayed by your research. Every search I did on "minimalism in photography" gave me similar "here's how to take a rule-of-thirds bullshit photo to sell to web hackers" too; we're reaching the point where the knowledge is suffocating in the bullshit.

In the vein of thankfulness (regardless of the schedule) here's "minimalism" as it used to be intended

and here's "minimalism" as it's apparently intended now.