minniev Loc: MIssissippi

Minnie said it :-) - the first two have boring subjects and the last one had no subject at all unless you accept the premise that light itself can be a subject, an unanswered question I've raised before in another section.

selmslie Loc: Fernandina Beach, FL, USA

You were being too modest. Of course there is a subject in all three.

Light alone is not sufficient unless it reflects off of something.

Even if you are simply taking a photo of the sun the subject might be sunspots or solar flare.

minniev Loc: MIssissippi

Spoken like a true technical expert, which is exactly the opposite of me. Yes, anything that my autofocus can settle on is essentially a subject of some type, but my home location is full of humdrum things rather than grand subjects so I have learned to make a bit of lemonade out of the lemons. I do enjoy the grand and exciting subjects when I travel, but I don't just sit in my house and wait for the next trip, I get right out there with the dead water lilies, ratty buzzards, gravel backroads to the latest pipeline excavation and see what there may be to see. And I hope others do the same.

The fun of this section is that folks with disparate viewpoints can share ideas!

ediesaul

I thought that minniev said that there was no subject, but that her main ingredient was light. Perhaps I am mistaken. In that case, I apologize.

lighthouse Loc: No Fixed Abode

Light and composition with subject ranking a distant third.
Oops, subject is not one of the options.
Color is irrelevant, contrast and tone and subtlety is much more important. I like black and whites and many images where colour does not even come into it. The exception to this is when colour would be used as a compositional element but that probably more correctly comes under contrast and composition.
Distance, all distances are equally appealing depending on the shot. I like UWA, I like tele, I like macro, I like the "big picture".
The moment- absolutely critical to some images, but not the top of my list. I am a landscape and seascape photog. If I was a sports or news or street photog it might be number one on my list.
Light in front of composition, because the true landscape photog can sit on the same composition for hours, or sometimes years, waiting upon the light, and the light hits and all the rest comes together, colour, subject, the moment, the strength of the composition, the tones, the subtlety.

Really, its all of them juggled in different amounts isn't it?

lighthouse Loc: No Fixed Abode

Yes, I suppose this would be correct.
After all, light is black in the vacuum of space.

Not many of us photograph the black vacuum of space though.
What F/stop would you use for that?

St3v3M Loc: 35,000 feet

Well said. S-

Dr.db Loc: Central Point, OR

Given that nuttin' would be nuttin' without light!...

Composition is the only of the other 4 aspects that apply to all images (Color, Moment, and Distance each being insignificant or at least uncritical in SOME circumstances.) :)

Composition is for light wranglers.

ediesaul

But we do photograph blackness, don't we? We use it as space in comparison to whatever else there is in the photo. Maybe the subject is the blackness itself.

Here's a link to a painting that is hanging in the Tate!

Kasimir Malevich’s Black Square
http://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/the-sublime/philip-shaw-kasimir-malevichs-black-square-r1141459

MIKE GALLAGHER Loc: New Zealand

The story.