About the photos
I decided to write this as quickly as I could, rather than honing the perfect essay. If I tried that, Finke 2004 would already be here and I'd still be tweaking Photoshop Levels on these example photos.
Frankly, I care very little about web-based photos. They're nice to have up, but I see no reason to ache over their perfection. I'd much rather spend the time tuning a good print. Between gamma and everything else, tweaking web graphics is doomed exercise anyway.
All the photos I take are scanned with a 4000dpi Nikon Super Coolscan 4000 scanner. That is quite excellent resolution. So if you want one of these photos, in a high resolution form, just ask.