Crop Corner

Photographs of Children - where do you stand? Section 45 of the Sex Offences Act 2003 amended S.1. Protection of Children Act (POCA) 1978 in May 2004 by raising the age of a `child' from 16 to 18. Now section 1 POCA 1978 makes it an offence to; take, make, allow to take, distribute, show, possess with intent to distribute, or advertise indecent photos or pseudo-photographs of children under the age of 18. That means, by knowingly looking at an indecent image of a child you are breaking the law in this country. Making or downloading potentially illegal child abuse images is punishable by up to 10 years in prison.

Ah, that sage advice offered by Chevy Chase in one of our alltime favorite movies, Caddyshack, should be kept in mind by photographers who hoist a camera on the links. In a nutshell, sports photography is tough. While there are lots of great sports photos published, the average newspaper is full of mediocre sports photos nearly every day. It's hard to get a good photograph of action in most sports. That's the bad news. The worse news is that golf is one of the hardest sports to photograph. There's no physical contact between players, the course is tremendous and the ball is tiny and travels very rapidly through the air. It's hard to get a good angle without impairing the golfer's concentration or risking getting conked by an errant drive.