Sure.. when you have Photon running and Buddypress running as well, when you go to add an avatar for your profile or for a group, you can't just upload an image or grab one from your library, Buddypress always forces you to CROP the image, so in essence you are forced to edit the image every time. Unfortunately, the second you upload the image Photon has then taken over the URL of the image and you end up at a broken image cropper tool, and you can't just save the image as Buddypress wants you to crop that image first, then save it.
Here are screenshots of what I'm talking about:
Buddypress Group Avatar Add page WITH your SKIP filter running. - Works perfectly.
Buddypress Group Avatar Add page WITH Photon running and NO SKIP filter. - Broken.
Here is a screenshot of the page source of the image URL of the broken avatar edit screen.
When you guys created Photon, you probably had the same issue happen in the WP- Admin area of WordPress while uploading images, so you probably temporarily disable Photon while in the WP-Admin area, unfortunately, Buddypress stuff occurs on the Front-End of the site, so the WP-Admin disable is not kicking in. (My guess)