Please don't do it!

Picture 1: Clothed and headless. No one would ever dream of taking, or posting, a picture like this.

Picture 2: Naked and headless. If no one would ever dream of posting a picture of a clothed and headless person, then why post a picture of a naked and headless person?

Picture 3: Clothed with visible head and face (just about!). The standard format for portraits, holiday snaps, social media posts, etc.

Picture 4: Naked, with visible head and face. An option sadly not available to everybody.

No one would consider posting a photo of a clothed person in which the head has been cropped out (Picture 1), so why on earth do it with a photo of a naked person (Picture 2)?! It's a terrible look (and a terrible photo) and does nudism / naturism absolutely no favours! Headless photos are truly awful in our opinion, but the good news is that there are alternatives for those wishing to post naked photos while maintaining their identities concealed!

In most photos of people, unless it is an abstract photo, the face and head is the focal point of the image, and so to crop it out is to render the whole image meaningless—you would not take a picture of your pet dog or cat that shows only the body and the tail; you would want the head to be in the frame too, wouldn't you?! Although it's perhaps the clumsiest form of self-censorship, it's not only chopping off a head that can ruin an image: blurring, pixellation and identity-obscuring with an emoji or a sticker are all almost as heinous!

The reasons for posting photos that conceal people's identities are obvious and totally understandable: people still fear the imagined or very real consequences of posting naked photos and the possible backlash from family, friends, work, and society in general that could follow. It's a sad reflection of the times we live in that this is still the case, and that we are still intimidated by this.

We all know that no matter how innocent, non-sexual and noble our intentions, someone else –an employer or religious group, for example– might not view it on the same terms. In extreme cases, this misunderstanding could lead to "catastrophic repercussions", although one would like to think (wishfully, possibly) that most people in this day and age would be more understanding and accommodating.

Luckily there are alternatives to photographic execution for concealing one's identity within the composition – covering the face with hair, a hat or other object, or simply the angle of the photo (from behind, with the head bowed or turned away...) – and any one of these alternatives is more subtle and infinitely preferable to cropping out the head or other self-censoring tricks, as the resulting image can still portray great power. It simply requires a little creativity, and there are plenty of examples of accounts on social media that have raised this to an art form in its own right.

The consequences of posting censored representations of the naked lifestyle reach beyond just a sub-standard image appearing on social media; it wouldn't be the only poor-quality photo on the internet after all; there are plenty of those. A more far-reaching consequence is that this sort of image is yet another, albeit minor, contribution to society's suspicion of nudists, and gives nudism a bad name. Even though one image will not create a bad reputation all on its own, there is enough of this sort of image out there to form a cumulative detrimental effect.

Anti-nudist critics of headless images know, or can guess at, the reasons behind the self-censorship on behalf of the person posting the picture, but they will still almost certainly spew out the old argument that runs, "if nudism is so harmless, innocent, non-sexual and "normal", why are these people concealing their identities?" And, to a certain extent, they would have a point. There is an perfectly reasonable explanation for the censorship of course, but they would have a point all the same, and others will be quick to agree with them.

It is often said that naturists and nudists are just like everyone else, and do the things everyone else does, with just one difference. Well let's make sure this concept extends to the photographs we use to represent our lifestyle on social media as well. The actions of individuals reflect in a small way on all of us, and the posting of good representative images is important to nudists and naturists everywhere if we are to have any chance of eroding the negative image of us that some people still harbour.

Unless nudists are prepared to post photos that include head and face, or get creative with props, poses and camera angles, in our opinion it's better not to post at all. Nudists need to earn our good reputation and prove to the world that we are just like anyone else, with just one small difference.