bkyser Loc: Fly over country in Indiana

With my old medium format, I only got 12 shots per roll, and trust me, thousands were out of the question. I don't do 5000, but I see craigslist photographers advertising that they "average 5000" I'm guessing they are trying to appeal to the "quantity over quality, or supersize me" mentality. My guess is that if someone hands a couple some disks with 5000 images all crammed together, the bride and groom probably never even look through all the photos once, none the less, actually order any.

I started with black and white, and moved into color, and color darkrooms, and then moved to working at a pro photo lab. Trust me, the "get it right in the camera like we did in the film days" are pulling your leg. We only worked for high end photographers, and I can remember retouching images and even the actual negatives with brushes that sometimes only had 1 hair. (I know, walked to school 10 miles in the snow, both directions) One of my main tasks was to be the guy who painted eyes on people who had them closed. It was fairly effective for the smaller prints, or the ones where there were a LOT of people in the crowd, so the eyes were small. We did have guys "airbrushing" photos. I trained to do it, but never got good enough to be an airbrusher.

I'm not putting down anyone's business model. If yours works, cool. My issue is that a true shoot and burn photographer, handing someone 5000 images isn't doing the bride and groom an favors. No matter how stunning the images, who really can go through that many. When we train (our future competition) our second shooters, we always tell them that the more shots they take, the more culling and PP work it will take, so be selective with every shot. I try to get them to imagine that they only have EXPENSIVE rolls of 12 exposure film, and every shot counts. I'd rather have one of them hand me a card with 20 well thought out photos, than one with thousands of "machine gun" pull the trigger photos.

gym Loc: Athens, Georgia

Wow. 5000. I can't imagine that. When I do an event, I may do several hundred - because - depending on the event - I'll often shoot in burst mode, especially when there are kids doing what kids do. I get about 10 frames per second, so you can imagine how fast that adds up. Expression and pose are two VERY important things for me, and though active kids don't intentionally pose, they do have a posture when I click the shutter, and some are better than others. I don't have to process all of these because a quick run through will eliminate about 90 percent of them. But the keepers are worth the effort.
But 5000............ oh my............