Richard...tank you so much! This is why I love being a member here, when one get great advice like this. I have learned so much the past three months and no without help from this site.
Of your latest three postings I think I prefer the first one "The rose..." - great work. (Some techniques are better than others for converting colour to B&W in Photoshop and a quick wander through the forums will see some of them discussed.) While the light in this one is interesting, for me it's not quite "magic" yet as the tonal range is still a little flat. Some tweaking in channel mixer and/or curves could boost the contrast in some places and extend the range a little. But nothing beats getting the lighting spot on in the first place - play around with reflectors, cutouts and diffusers (all can be homemade with foil, cardboard etc) to see what works best. I like the pose and viewpoint and the eyes are very strong. You have burst onto the scene here with some great ideas and shown an imaginative eye so keep them coming! BTW, as a learning tool (especially for the basics of composition, exposure etc) I think digital has advantages over film in many ways because of the immediate feedback. You get to know straight away whether your ideas and techniques worked rather than when you get your film back a week later, when the Pavlov's dog thing has well and truly worn off! - and all the Hasselblad's and Zeiss lenses in the world won't help if you don't have the "eye" in the first place...
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