Ellen Stein gave a very informative talk on minimalist photography, researching the subject and even creating images specifically for the presentation. Minimalism means elimination of the unnecessary, striping away all that is unimportant in the image. It emphasizes extreme simplicity and clean composition. A frequent characteristic is a reduced subject size relative to large amounts of empty/negative space. It can be applied to a broad range of subjects such as abstracts, people, landscapes, flora and fauna. Look before you shoot, don't rely on post processing to remove background and distractions, find subjects that already fit the description. Check out the Minimalist Photography Awards website for examples.