Skinny Dipping Event Puts Ban on Photography After ‘Too Many Cameras’
A skinny dipping event in the UK has been forced to implement what it calls photography restrictions after cameras became too prevalent.
The North East Skinny Dip took place this weekend with hundreds of brave souls stripping off and diving into the icy waters of the North Sea.
But before this year’s event took place, organizer Jax Higginson enforced photography rules for the first time in 13 years after some of the participants had complained that smartphone cameras were ruining the experience.
“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 issue of cameras has only become apparent in the last 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 previously suggested a total ban on photography, but received pushback from some people. So for the 2025 event, she introduced some areas of the beach that are photography-free so that people can make their own decision.
Posts with numbers on helped the skinny dippers navigate which areas of the beach permitted photography and which didn’t.
Higginson adds that the boundaries are “good and healthy” as some people cannot bear the idea of their naked body appearing on the internet.
Smartphone Photography
As smartphones have become ubiquitous and many people are constantly chasing content for social media, it has become an issue for events like skinny dipping where many people would understandably rather not be photographed.
Nightclubs have also had to deal with smartphones in a similar way. While many embrace it and see it as a way of promotion, some nightclubs — particularly in European cities like Berlin — have taken the complete opposite stance and banned the devices, going so far as to place stickers over camera lenses so that revelers don’t start filming.
Image credits: Header photo licensed via Depositphotos.
