As cynlee says, he did provide an apparently valid phone number and address... still it feels fishy. His language throughout the email is convoluted and just plain odd. It's very difficult to understand what he's offering or asking or selling or whatever. And when I did a Google search, I could find nothing about "Atomic Media" in England or Belgium. I think the advice to stay away is probably wise. Thanks all for the response! :)

Great question!

A few years back, I exhibited on the walls of a bunch of San Francisco cafes, corporate foyers, restaurants, etc. I framed some 20 of my favorite prints and displayed them at such locations (San Francisco, luckily, has many such venues, always looking for artists who want to display work). During that year I did sell quite a few pieces.

I've never done an art fair or tried to display in a gallery, but I'd like to.

As it happens, I'm currently at a sort of crossroads in my professional life and lately some have urged me to seriously consider photography as a career. I'm excited by the idea, but more than a little wary of the difficulties and insecurity that I imagine go along with being a professional photographer (especially a landscape photographer). So if I may take the liberty of tacking my own questions onto your thread... I'd love to hear about the experiences of those who've tried to make a career (or partial career) out of photography. What barriers and frustrations did you face? Was it easier or harder than you imagined? At what stage in your life did you move toward photography? What advice do you have for others looking to give it a go?

Many thanks for your time and responses. :)

This looks pretty clean to me, but I do feel your pain. After years of mediocre (sometimes just plain bad) scans with a cheap Canon flatbed, I finally splurged on the Epson 3200. There's a huge improvement in the quality of my scans, both directly from negatives and from prints. At $400 I consider it quite a bargain, especially since I use it almost every day. If you can afford it, the satisfaction you'll get from sdomething newer and better might be worth it since you're working with so much film. :)

Lol!! Was this with the D100?

Thanks everybody for the helpful feedback. Donald, I will definitely give that technique a try. But all those numbers make me a little nervous... I'm not much when it comes to math and calculation. So I'm intrigued by your mention of 3rd party techniques. Do you mean software that does the job automatically? Like as a plug-in in PS? Do you have the names of some of those programs/vendors? Many thanks again! :) Steve

Hmm... almost every monitor calibration advice page I've seen on the web suggests most monitors should be set with contrast at 100%. I constantly struggle with monitor calibration; I can never seem to find satisfactory settings. I'd like to get it set at something approaching the sRGB standard, and I think I've got it close, but I'm never really sure. It's a very confusing process. Does anybody have any good advice on this subject?

Very tragic and frightening. Glad you're safe. The pictures are incredible.

Hahahahaha! Hilarious! Sometimes "mistakes" turn into great shots! Actually, I think there's just something universally amusing about cows. Pictures of them always make me smile... don't know why, really...

Since I don't yet own a digital camera, who am I to offer advice? But it seems to me that extensive bracketing is one way to achieve better results for such shots, especially given the extra "free" storage space of digital, as opposed to film.

A book I recently got: "The Photoshop Book For Digital Photographers" by Scott Kelby describes several detailed (and relatively easy) methods for conversion to b&W, one very similar to what zhounder described above. The author claims his methods produce far better results than a simple conversion using the "desaturate" command, for example. The methods are too long to rewrite, but I encourage folks to check out the book. It's probably available in many libraries.

I'm going to disagree... these implements have an ominous quality, so they seemed suited to b&w. The blue is indeed very powerful, but the b&w was a better fit, at least to me.

they're all nice shots. image 4 is my favorite.

for what it's worth, i think it's quite a fascinating picture just as it is. i suppose one approach would be to take several shots, each focused on a different "layer" (the sidewalk, the glass, the action inside, etc.) and see how they turn out. you could also try various depth of field settings. i'd just experiment...

I agree with Michelle that his photos were wonderful, especially that cat eye photo.

Thanks to all of you for the great replies and the warm welcomes to the forum. So much useful information! You've given me a lot to think about.

There are enthusiastic loyalists to the Minolta and the Sony, which is interesting. Doesn't make my decision any easier... !

I'll let you all know when and what I buy. Any other replies are of course appreciated...

Thanks very much again to all of you!

Steve