Skinny Dipping Event Places Ban on Photography After ‘Too Many Cameras’

A thin dipping occasion within the UK has been compelled to implement what it calls pictures restrictions after cameras grew to become too prevalent.

The North East Skinny Dip befell this weekend with a whole lot of courageous souls stripping off and diving into the icy waters of the North Sea.

But earlier than this 12 months’s occasion befell, organizer Jax Higginson enforced pictures guidelines for the primary time in 13 years after among the contributors had complained that smartphone cameras have been ruining the expertise.

“As the organizer of North East Skinny Dip (NESD), the single most important element is that I create the safest possible environment for everybody to surrender to the essence of their individual experience,” Higginson writes on Instagram.

She explains to the BBC that the problem of cameras has solely change into obvious within the final couple of years.

“Even I, as someone who is less bothered by cameras and unafraid of being seen — even I was shocked by the number of cameras,” Higginson tells the BBC. “Instead of a sea of bodies, it had become a sea of cameras.”

Higginson says she had beforehand urged a complete ban on pictures, however obtained pushback from some folks. So for the 2025 occasion, she launched some areas of the seashore which can be photography-free so that individuals could make their very own choice.

Posts with numbers on helped the thin dippers navigate which areas of the seashore permitted pictures and which didn’t.

Higginson provides that the boundaries are “good and healthy” as some folks can’t bear the thought of their bare physique showing on the web.

Smartphone Photography

As smartphones have change into ubiquitous and many individuals are always chasing content material for social media, it has change into a difficulty for occasions like skinny dipping the place many individuals would understandably fairly not be photographed.

Nightclubs have additionally needed to cope with smartphones in an identical manner. While many embrace it and see it as a manner of promotion, some nightclubs — significantly in European cities like Berlin — have taken the exact opposite stance and banned the units, going as far as to put stickers over digicam lenses in order that revelers don’t begin filming.

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Image credit: Header photograph licensed by way of Depositphotos.