The photosphere is the disk you see in the sky when you look at the Sun through a filtered telescope or as a projection on a piece of paper. You should never look at the Sun directly, it can cause blindness. When you look at the Sun with a filtered telescope you can see evidence in the photosphere of the convective bubbles in the convection zone below. The continuous rising and falling of hot and cool bubbles produces a pattern on the surface of the Sun that is referred to as granulation. Shown here is an image of granulation around a Sunspot in the photosphere.
Energy is transported through the photosphere once again by radiation.
Kelvin, the gas is thin enough that the atoms absorb and release energy. It takes light from the Sun just over eight minutes to reach the earth.