Batting practice?

Another group shoot coming up, this time the "Lingerie Shoot" at the Camera Club on Sunday, featuring Megan (shown here from my shoot with her earlier this year) and Mechka (see my "Showcase" post below). Since I've done what I feel were successful studio shoots with both of them, it's strange that I still feel compelled to go to a "batting practice' type group shoot where I'll be lucky to emerge with 50 frames, and maybe a few decent shots that will be largely similar to shots done by the other 10 or 12 shooters in attendance.

The "batting practice" style group shoot is where the backdrop and lights are set by the organizer, the model steps onto the set, and the first photographer steps up, directs her for four or five poses/shots, then steps aside for the next photographer, etc. until each photographer has had a chance to shoot, then either another model steps in, or everyone waits for the wardrobe change. I'm not sure I'm wired for that setting -- it's not bad practice at model direction because you have very little time to get the model into different poses, but there's no time to "warm up' and establish any sort of rapport, and I don't like the idea of another photographer breathing down my neck to finish so he can take his cuts. I don't think I've gotten more than a handful of shots at these things that have been worth adding to my port even temporarily. And if I do manage to come up with an interesting approach or pose at the shoot, generally the next three guys in line mimic it, so any original thought is immediately compromised and copied.

But is there an original thought left when it comes to photography? I know a model whose signature image is her wearing a custom-made gas mask, and it's a striking image that has gained a lot of attention for her and the photographer. But I was flipping through an Edward Weston book of nudes from 75 years or so ago, and what's there? A nude model wearing a gas mask. Not one of his best known images, but it shows that the gas mask idea is not new or original, and may not even have been when Weston made the image back then. So it seems to me that originality in photography is more about execution of an idea in a distinctive and satisfying manner -- that's the best we can probably hope for. And maybe that's the challenge of attending the group shoot this weekend...to take the circumstances that everyone else shares, and find a way to create something that stands apart from what everyone else does with it.