The Swiss Gymnastics Federation (STV) have announced a ban on what they call suggestive photographs of gymnasts. The organisation claim to want to ‘sensitise the media professionals’ to the issue. Images showing legs spread upwards and focusing on the crotch area will no longer be allowed.
The move follows are similar initiative by the German Gymnastics Federation, which also calls to focus more on the gymnast’s poses and positions via new guidelines for photographers.
A statement read: ‘To protect gymnasts, the STV strives to ensure that no suggestive or otherwise ethically sensitive photos are published and passed on. Especially photos where gymnasts were photographed in the crotch.’
It added: ‘The STV is aware that such photos can arise in action photography. However, publication should be avoided. The main concern of the STV is to sensitise the media professionals and to let common sense prevail.’
According to the German newspaper Bild, images of gymnasts doing the splits will still be permitted, depending on the angle. Similarly, the German Federation has changed the angle that press photographers are allowed to take images for events such as the Uneven Bars. For disciplines such as those, photographers are required to sit at a side angle and not take photographs from straight on.
All this might seem like micro-managing photographers, however, it must be remembered that girls as young as eleven or twelve years old frequently take part in gymnastic competitions at national and international levels. Now with deepfakes and AI, there is much more scope for those images to get into the wrong hands.
“We wanted to send a signal that we no longer want such photos,” Naomi Kempter of the STV stated. “It was high time for something like this,” she added in a statement.
[Via The Daily Mail]
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