I respectfully disagree with Ted ;-)

[Afterswift@aol.com]

What the photographer basically does, I think, is setting up a trap to catch
chance. Make many pictures and you will increase your chances of producing
the exeptional image. --Gerard Captijn.

Gerard,

Your first statement squares with my experience. The second needs some
amendment. It's not the number of shots you take, but how much time you spend
in the field preparing and expecting to make only a few. 

I could spend 12 hours in the field and shoot only about 10 frames. I doubt
that had I fired away at anything that caught my eye for a moment I would
have accomplished more than I did with the few images I came home with. I've
never found the point in frame count where quantity in photography engenders
quality.
Statistics seldom applies to art. However, once I have a telling subject in
my viewfinder, I will shoot as many frames as the ideas occur to me about it.


Case in point: Yesterday I literally did fieldwork walking a road to the
Oregon outback. The light was brilliant, subjects presented themselves
readily. Today I covered the same terrain and all those opportunities were
gone. I made no exposures. The light had lost its revelatory edge that the
subjects demanded. What would be the object of firing off a few rolls of film
for some statistical chance of success? 

Bob