If they are good enough to employ they are good enough for AT LEAST minimum wage and fair treatment under the local employment standards. Anything else is outright exploitation regardless of how lofty the stature of the exploiter or glowing their after the fact recommendation of their victim. On the subject of artists as a**holes: where did we ever get the naive notion that art and artists are any different from other products produced by human beings or the people who produce them???? That's equivalent to saying that if someone is a drunken, wife abusing pedofile druggie we are still "obliged" to recognize and buy support their work. Arts is product for consumption just as music or hamburgers and if we don't agree with the behaviour of the producer, as consumers we still have the right to protest with our wallets and our feet. They can be happily famous after they are dead and doing penance in whatever afterlife they ended up in.

Can't you just hear the conversation at the coctail party - "I just LOOOOVE your dress dahling. Is it a Nikon"?

What a wonderful Sunday morning treat - and the last shot is a hoot. Love it. Love it. Cheers John

The Leica is still the quintecential example of the "simple" camera that takes superb pictures (in the right hands). So is the Zeiss and the Voightlander - and regrettablly the no gone Nikon SP. A venerable Nikon F in the right hands is still a superb picture taking machine. Just think - what if Zeiss and Voightlander built digital versions of their rangefinder cameras ... without any additional frills. And if Pentax can build a supersealed tank for about the same price of a mid-level model from Nikon or Canon ... what if they just took out all the extraneous technojunk. Gee we might actually go back to focusing (excuse the pun) on photography ... corrcet aperture, appropriate shutter speed, precise focus and the esthetics of the art. What a revolutionary idea!!!!!

Great babble. But SHOW ME THE PICTURES!!!! I'll wait for something more real world than this.