iphoto pic location

I'm new to iphoto and was trying to very quickly get some photos downloaded from my digital camera and then uploaded to a news channels website. This is the process I went through and the problem I had.

Plugged in the camera via USB.
I selected the necessary pics from the camera and imported into iphoto.
I then went to try to find the pics on my hard drive so I could upload them. This is when I hit my first problem. Where the heck were they? I finally resorted to a quick google search and found they were inside the iphoto library package. Well, now I couldn't get to this directory through basic navigating. Apparently I had to use the "Show Package contents" option menu selection to get into this area of the hard drive. This wouldn't ordinarily be a problem except you can't do that type of navigating from the Mail application when trying to add an attachment. Well, you might say, "then just use the Email button directly from iphoto". That's fine, except I actually needed to use a link directly on the News channel's website to upload the pics. This web interface wanted me to navigate to the location to my pics to upload, and I couldn't do it. I ultimately ended up copying the pics from the iphoto library to a subdirectory outside the library, then I could do the necessary uploading. This seems ridiculous! Here are my questions.

Is there a better way to do this?
What if I simply want to use my Mail app to email a picture to someone and not go through the iphoto application?
Finally, how can I use basic navigation from any app to get to these pics?

First -- stay out of the library in finder. Apple made it a "package" on purpose to keep users from messing about in there and corrupting their photos. Forget it is there and let iPhoto do the work for you. Users should not be going in there until and unless they understand EXACTLY how iPhoto organizes, otherwise you will lose access to your photos from within the app.

Now, from within the iPhoto app, select the photos you want to upload, drag them to the desktop (or use the export function so you can choose what size you want them to be) and upload from there. If you want to use Mail, in the upper right hand corner of a new mail message (I think, I am not at the mac right now) you should see an icon for Media (again, I think that is what it says, but you'll see it). Click on this and navigate to you photos. This option is available in many different apps. Just look for it.

Thank you for the reply. Your submission was very helpful.