When I got French nationality, I spent 6 months growing an impressive old-style moustache just for the ID photo. it's the little things that count.
I grew an absurd handlebar mustache for my driver license photo. It never fails to get a double-take and a laugh.
In college my GF loved to give me hickeys (against my will) on my neck before I would go out at the bar because she thought it would dissuade women from flirting with me.
After we had a particularly bad fight, after things cooled down and we were making up, she put a huge one on my neck. Like it looked like someone wrenched me with a baseball bat. Next day it was really bruised and looked horrible. I had to get my DL renewed and they took the pic with the bruise and all.
I got the same thing, bouncers and every time I had to present somewhere would get the "Ohhhhhhh bro, that is BAD!" which would then lead to other people clamoring to see it.
Ah, one of those things we think are romantic but are actually abuse. :/
Related: https://youtu.be/IoM2Cwt2cVQ
Relatably related: https://youtu.be/Yh9O9ETuF_0?t=119
(T.J. Miller driver's license photo routine)
If one goes with a fake (but not obviously fake) moustache, would they question?
What is your definition of fake - can be pulled off? Not your own hair?
Lots of options here.
What if it's your own hair, but glued back on haha
It doesn't really matter. If you are not recognizable, it's not valid. That is the whole point of a photo-ID the photo has to be a good likeness with you. Glad the GP met friendly people that let him get away with it but don't count on it working for ever :-)
The driver's license is not an ID, though. Besides, at least in Germany you get it and then it never changes. So the photo is pretty much always outdated.
It is definitely an ID in some countries (notably the US, where it is by far the most common).
My European driver's license expires in 2046, but the fine print says if my appearance substantially changes, or the police requires it, I must get a new one.
In most US states, your drivers license is the only photo ID most people have.
I was going to make a quip about how that's because, compared to Europe, almost nobody in the States has bothered to get a passport.. but apparently the percentage of Statesians who have passports has skyrocketed in the last 35 years from ~3% to 51%: https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/Z9qF8/6/
For any US Citizens renewing a US passport: if you want a national ID that fits in your wallet, you can pay $30 and get a passport card. They are a no brainer upgrade to a passport application or renewal IMHO. Cost is a bit higher due to a $35 application fee if you are getting them separate from a passport book but I think they are still worth it.
They can be used for land and sea entry to the US. They serve as ID on domestic flights and for I9 employment verification.
Many countries technically require you to always travel with national ID or require it for traveling on trains (since they have national IDs, unlike the US). But passports are bulky and American travelers have been taught to leave them in safes or buried in bags where they are hard to steal. A passport card can be kept on hand 24/7 in case a national ID is needed.
In the event you lose your actual passport after traveling abroad, they would save a ton of time at the embassy since you have a form of passport already on you. Compare this to the panicked alternative of trying to get a replacement with a photocopy of your passport (which standard travel advice says you should have for this reason) and somehow getting a birth certificate.
Yep, also extremely helpful if you need to submit a passport for processing (e.g., visa applications) when you're soon to be/are already abroad.
Very much an id in Canada too.
Germany is doing away with the eternal drivers licenses in stages. Better look that up before you loose yours. Wifes license runs out in January next year, eep.
>Wifes license runs out in January next year, eep
Genuinely asking, how does that qualify as "eep"? Is renewing onerous or expensive in Germany? I ask because in the US, renewing a license is usually cheap and done quickly online, except for about once a decade, they require a new photo (which itself doesn't take too long with an appointment).
It was totally forgotten. I thought it was done already but we forgot to order it so thanks for the reminder :-)
We don't live in Germany so she has to get a swedish one now anyway.
Yes, it's been online since as long as I can remember. 25-ish years probably.
It acts as an ID in most cases.
It is in some countries
Most photo id are valid for 10 years. Your appearance can change in 10 years.
Where from and is it curly?
Looking at other art by him, his latest piece Democracy features three figures in voting booths, one with their pants pulled down. Sure feels timely. He wrote a nice blurb with it too, I love it when artists include some of their thoughts in portfolios rather than just the photos alone (though this piece was a sculpture).
Art imitating life
"Rebelse Belg trekt broek naar beneden in stemhokje"
Translation: Rebellious Belgian pulls down pants in voting booth
https://www.ad.nl/buitenland/belg-trekt-broek-uit-in-stemhok...
I actually came to the comments to post the same.
Oh! Something I took a part in on HN. That's a first. Almost everything there was practical. Highly recommend checking out all of Max's work, beaming with creativity.
So its not mentioned on the post but is this your actual passport photo that was accepted and used and you have it on your physical passport right now?
While this may have not been done, I don't see a reason why these wouldn't have been accepted. Source: I am a certified passport photographer.
how do you get certified to be a passport photographer?
In the US, anyone can take the photo, including yourself.
In the U.K. people used to go to a booth, but nowadays you just get a well lit white wall and take a selfie on your phone.
I did this. It's surprisingly hard to find a solid white background and get uniform lighting at home. Took many shots.
Fifteen years ago I did my own in Canada, and just wrote my own name and phone number on the back as at the "photographer". They gave me the hairy eyeball at the passport office though but let it slide since the pics did meet the requirements.
After that I got them done at the local framing shop.
I'm not sure anyone tried to actually use it as a passport photo. Would have been a great touch though.
It's actually a really exciting thought...
Would that even work? Are you not in Europe, where passport photos are taken on location?
> where passport photos are taken on location
Europe is not a single thing and that statement is not correct.
I'm in Estonia (which is in the EU) and you can either submit a picture online or take the picture on location.
An oddball question, but do you have that government document/card that also works as a smartcard to create digital signatures? Does that get used typically in interactions with the government (or maybe even businesses)?
Not gp, but a resident:
> do you have that government document/card that also works as a smartcard to create digital signatures?
> Does that get used typically in interactions with the government
Extra info:
Instead of ID cards, on a daily basis most people use SmartID (same as ID cards, but as a mobile app) or MobileID (same, but embedded to the SIM card) for auth operations.
Many computers in the government, hospitals and schools have a keyboard with an ID card slot and users can (or sometimes are required to) use their ID cards to log in.
There's also a free-software DigiDoc4 app available for Desktop and Mobile, which allows users to sign or encrypt any document or folder for free, using one of the 3 authentication methods mentioned above. You can use it to sign contracts like rent or business.
In both of the two European countries I've been involved in a passport application for, we had to bring photos along, which we got taken by a photographer in a copy store. There was no certification of the photographer involved that I'm aware of, just the usual list of requirements for the photo that they had to follow.
In Germany and Japan, you bring one. It wouldn't be an issue if it fit the biometric spec.
I'm in Europe and mine sure was not taken on location. Had it done in a mall, and they sent it electronically to the police.
from the 3 or 4 docs i've had made within 10 years requiring this specification, only once was the pic taken on location
In Britain you just upload a digital photo so it would work here.
How odd, there's no verification if it is your photo
There is now, there's a system where you use a webcam to do a live facial-recognition check to verify your identity - with a for profit business (because that's what Tories do, make ordinary parts of government into a way to pay out private profits).
That only confirms the person sitting at the computer is the person in the uploaded photo though.
When you first get a passport you have to have your identity confirmed by a professional person with community standing, teacher, policeman, doctor, someone like that.
They do background checks, it seems quite rigorous.
Once you have a passport/driving license they allow you to reuse a recently verified picture in your application to get the other document.
Don't know about Britain but the US also allows passport renewals by mail, so they can't check the photo against your face but they presumably can check it against your previous passport photo.
how did you come to take part?
It was fairly random, someone in my network had mentioned that Max was looking for people to take part in the project and I reached out. I was given a date and time slot and that was that.
It's a lot of "fun" trying to get acceptable photos. Last week I went to my local American Automobile Association (AAA) office to get an International Driver's Permit (IDP). It's just a translation of your license, which is valid for 1 year. I had to take 2 passport-sized photos with me, which I did.
But I was told they wouldn't be accepted because I had long hair and a beard in them, but short hair and no beard now. That's absurd, because it's the same photo used in both of my passports, and there's no requirement that you don't alter your appearance from your passport photo. Somehow border guards can crack the code.
Amusingly, my California driver's license shows short hair and no beard, but the AAA person wasn't even looking at my CA license at the time. What happens if I grow long hair and a beard before I travel? Was he just trying to upsell me on a $9.99 photo?
We had a hell of a time getting the UK passport authorities to accept the photos we sent in for her passport; they recommend getting your photos taken at an "official" UK location where the digital photos are identified by a code you send in. Well, we happened to be traveling through Australia during this timeframe, so we were able to stop at an Australian Post Office, which supposedly had the same "digital" system, but instead of a code to send to the UK authorities, they handed us printed photos and a web link. Thankfully I was able to use the web link to download the photo and upload it to the UK site, where it was approved almost immediately, and the new passport arrived back at our home before we returned from our trip. But there's no user-obvious criteria that was being used to reject the SEVERAL rounds of photos we had sent to the UK earlier.
> But I was told they wouldn't be accepted because I had long hair and a beard in them, but short hair and no beard now.
Tell them your religion doesn't permit beardless photos, so you grew one for the photo.
When they ask what religion, pick one with beards.
It's AAA, not the police -- the person behind the desk will shrug, now with a reason not to care, and create your IDP.
A lot of companies seem to have "policies" that are grounded in nothing. Airlines are especially bad about this, thinking they know better than you whether you'll be able to get through immigration at the destination. For whatever reason, airline policies about whether you can get on the plane are completely unrelated to the destination countries' policies about whether you can be allowed in.
The most egregious such policy that comes to mind was when Philippine Airlines refused to give me a boarding pass for a flight to China unless I filled out a health declaration form that was guaranteed to expire before my flight arrived.
There was of course no obstacle to me filling out (a new copy of) the form on arrival in China. As was necessarily the case, given that the pre-flight declaration expired during the flight.
I think the rationale behind this is that many countries will fine the airline around $10,000 for each passenger that doesn't have the right immigration documentation and has to be deported. So there is a reason they err on the side of caution for them at the expense of making your life harder
It’s not the denied entry pipeline that a lot of countries worry about. Those have always been the airline’s problem.
It’s the lawful refugee claims they might be forced to consider/accept if a claimant can make landfall.
And their dislike of citizens using minimal ID to lawfully gain entry home.
So they extort the airlines to fulfill their wishes on foreign soil.
> A lot of companies seem to have "policies" that are grounded in nothing.
A lot of this comes down to people not wanting to stick their head out to change process and groupthink.
I witnessed an individual in a “worker bee” capacity trying to suggest a small-but-significant change on a client-facing first-contact form. They went through their CoC to get the message out, but got the “that’s nice, dear” treatment.
Said “worker bee” moved into a different department some time later, and all of a sudden, it was such a great idea that no one had thought about.
These kind of policies are usually grounded by the one dickhead who tried to do something completely stupid that they never anticipated, now they have to have a policy for it.
Every dumb rule and warning label has a story attached.
> These kind of policies are usually grounded by the one dickhead who tried to do something completely stupid that they never anticipated, now they have to have a policy for it.
How do you think that could create a policy of "before boarding the plane, you must fill out some invalid paperwork which will be available, and valid, after you disembark"? There is literally zero consequence for not doing it, and also literally zero benefit for doing it.
Why enforce something that’s bound to become irrelevant by the time it’s needed?
To avert liability, usually.
> When they ask what religion, pick one with beards.
I just love this sentence.
Gotta cover all the bases and tell them you're Jewslamic Rastodox Sikhamish.
"I can't tell you, it's one with beards and also secrets"
"Right, I'm just going to jot down Eastern Orthodoxy then, move along."
My newest Comcast cancellation reason is telling them I'm converting to the Amish faith, and could I talk to them for a moment about it...
Public service message: in many countries, the IDP, International Driving Permit, is not needed.
Since it is only a translation, it carries no official weight.
Many countries that use the Latin alphabet only need a translation of the drivers license (ie IDP) if the alphabet on the driver’s license is not Latin.
Check online before you travel.
This can save you a trip to the AAA, a few bucks, and an encounter with a clerk who questions the validity of your beard.
Tell that to Mr. Prawo Jazdy. https://www.irishtimes.com/news/phantom-pole-haunts-garda-at...
Ask them for directions to the Forest of Skund. ;)
As an example, Australia wants one. I can't remember if Geneva or Vienna type or both. Last time I've been there was 2019 and my country uses the Latin alphabet too (it was invented here.) The official document is the country's of origin driving license but basically owning a valid IDP states that your country and the destination country are signatories of one of those two conventions and agree to let their own citizens drive in both countries with no need of further tests.
Some countries recognize some foreign driving licenses, at least for a while, without the need of the IDP. The USA is one of them but it has been a long time since I drove a car there so it could have changed or be regulated state by state and not at federal level. The USA is a signatory of the 1949 Geneva convention.
I’ve hired cars in Austrailia without an IDP, just my British driving license.
Yeah; I'm a USian, and this one is for Japan which "requires" it. I also got one for Italy a bunch of years ago, as I was told the car rental agencies would not rent me a car without one.
Otherwise I've never bothered, and I've rented cars in a half dozen countries in Europe, Australia, NZ....
I feel that a long time ago (15-20 years ago) it was needed more often. Over the past 10 years I have not needed one.
The criteria for UK stuff is normally really clear? https://www.gov.uk/photos-for-passports
Can see how it would be annoying if they don't explain which criteria is being violated though
Yeah, the criteria is clear, but do everything you can to meet it, and the online submission will just say the photo quality is "poor" (unlikely to be approved) and not explain what's poor about it. I spent a lot of time juggling aspects of the photo itself as well as of the scan (DPI, compression, etc) and nothing seemed to make a difference.
Anecdata from the other side, I've done a few passports for family now and it gives immediate ratings and we've not had any issue at all.
I took a phone selfie against a white wall and it was accepted fine.
My prior passport photo was taken with the Irish Passport office's manual "send in photos and someone decides if it's good enough" process they had at the time. As I always wore glasses, I wore them in my photo too, which given they didn't obscure the face, the manual check indicated they were fine.
For my latest renewal, they've moved to an app based process which just flat out rejects any with my glasses on because the prescription is so strong it distorts the outline of my face (at least that's my best guess, as the app claims compatibility with glasses.
Anyway, since renewing the passport to one without glasses in my passport photo, I've found I much more frequently get rejected at automated passport gates, often needing to take my glasses off so I match the passport photo better.
Really they should probably do three photos minimum, looking 45 deg right, then left, then straight on, they could add a with/without glasses (or anything else you'd normally wear, facial jewelry perhaps).
In my recent experience renewing my UK passport, I found I was able to submit the image regardless of the complaining it gave, I just had to write a note as to why I thought the image did in fact meet their criteria.
In my case, whatever detection software they used seemed to think my eyes were closed, which they were not.
I just used a normal picture taken on a phone, against a plain white wall, accepted with no issues.
Geneva Convention which established IDPs in the post-war period ran parallel to measures implemented under the Marshall Plan. The regulation of road signs and establishing protocols for uniformity within the EU and 101 member states involved in its ratification paved the way for the re industrialization of the EU.
https://treaties.un.org/doc/Publication/MTDSG/Volume%20I/Cha...
I made my passport photos on a phone camera against a white wall, stitched them together with other family members and printed them on a 4x6 photo at CVS.
I think it cost something like $0.68 for 2 photos, each of which had all four of our photos plus 2 extra spots.
I found the digital upload thing easier when I last renewed my UK passport since you can just take a photo with your phone and get instant feedback.
It's been awhile, but probably my mistake was scanning an actual high quality passport photo with a flatbed scanner rather than just halfassing it with a phone camera, since that seems to have worked so much better for everyone here!
Unless you are traveling to some weird place almost everywhere will accept a standard driver's license if it has English on it.
Vietnam famously doesn't. You can rent a motorbike without showing any sort of license, but in the most touristic areas (eg Ha Giang loop) the police picks out foreigners to check and get their bribe.
And I have a vague remembrance (take with a whole rock of salt) that foreigners from many countries technically _cannot_ legally drive there even with an IDP, because there's 2 competing IDP standards or something like that. But I'd guess you'd be fine
Yeah, the actual law is irrelevant most of the time, since it's just a shakedown. I did encounter one cop who knew about the 2 different IDP conventions and was able to extract the coffee money even if you had one. If you don't want to pay, offering to accompany them to the station to pay there (and get a receipt) usually works, especially if you're out in the countryside, since they don't want to give up on the chance to stop a bunch of other people. If you do choose to pay, they'll usually share your license plate on a WhatsApp group with the other local police if you ask them to, so you won't get hassled again for the rest of the day.
Not sure why but I'm quite tickled by the existence of WhatsApp groups to coordinate who's paid their bribe for the day. I think it's the thought of breaking the law being done in an orderly way.
You may enjoy the second image in this article, of looters forming an orderly queue and making sure not to obstruct the pavement while doing so:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2023924/London-riot...
Interestingly, the article complains about the looters using BBM to communicate, which is a bit of a blast from the past.
Two 'weird' places I have visited this year that required an IDP were Japan and Taiwan.
Indonesia and Sri Lanka require it too.
Japan.
> but instead of a code to send to the UK authorities, they handed us printed photos and a web link.
I had a similar experience with getting UK photos at a chemist, they said they could do digital photos and didn’t. So I went to the Photo Warehouse and it was smooth sailing. I guess the specialist photo outfits are more likely to know what they’re doing.
> But I was told they wouldn't be accepted
Huh. Last time I got an IDP from AAA, I don't think the lady behind the desk even really looked at the photo. She just took my $20, copied the info from my app to my permit, stapled one of the photos to the permit, and handed it to me. It was like less than three minutes total.
The IDP feels like such a scam. I have to get it every year and it is so annoying.
It doesn’t feel like a scam. It IS a scam. You were able to get a 3 year valid one but now they reduced it to 1 year. If my permit is valid for 10 years, so should the IDP. But then it’d cost x10 if they were to keep the same profit. So suddenly asking for close to $200 will feel outrageous. Just shows how corruption can be worse than a monetary loss.
You don't even need it most of the time. Almost every country will just accept a driver's license from most other countries as long as it's fairly standard and has a section in English. I've driven in dozens of countries with my local driver's license.
Yeah, I don't bother any more, but it has happened a couple of times to me in Europe that a rental car company asked for it and then refused to rent without it. In both cases I just walked over to a different company's desk and they didn't ask.
I've had several companies refuse rental and ask for IDP. $20 to avoid hassles is worth it for me.
Unfortunately I don’t live in the country my license was issued in, so until I get a local license (which takes some time) I don’t have much choice, since the alternative is flying half way around the world to get an IDP. The whole system is a bit flawed.
There are some websites that will issue a translation of your license that looks very similar to the "official" IDP. Depending on where you're going it might be sufficient. (Generally works fine for avoiding police "coffee money" shakedowns in Southeast Asia, for example.)
It seems absurd that the requirements can vary so much and yet remain so vague
> But I was told they wouldn't be accepted because
yeah, and I would have expected nothing less. from my personal experience, the photos were required to be recent. just based on your having visited a barber would signal to me that the photos were not recent. even if you visited the barber while you waited for the 1-Hour Photo guy to finish, a logical person would realize this was not going to work out well
The criteria says "Two original passport pictures" ; it does not say "recent".
Regardless, the photos are recent (<1yr) and my driver's license has a 5 year validity and passports 10 year validity. As an illogical person, I sometimes change my appearance over a given 10 year span.
When I renew my US passport by mail, they don't actually know what I look like at the time of the renewal.
IDP's are only valid for a short period of time. I suspect that money-grubbing may play a role, but the purpose of them is to let you identify yourself to police in a language (especially an alphabet) you don't speak. So perhaps it's something that clerk had heard some horror story about and was giving good advice.
Yes, I suspect the 1 year validity of the IDP plays a part here. The gentleman who said my photo wouldn't be accepted was front desk (and, apparently, photo-taking) staff; he wasn't even the person creating the IDP. I agree with you that I suspect he was trying to be helpful.
New photos: $9.99
Fake dressup beard: $0.99
I know which one I'd choose.
$9 isn't worth being detained while on an international trip in a place where the police don't speak your language because they don't believe your photo is you. Actually, it's less expensive than the last set of passport photos I had made, so maybe I'll just go to AAA next time.
Especially since sometimes ‘detained’ can mean ‘beaten’.
While this is definitely true, I don't imagine that it's common for tourists over a speeding ticket. Could still happen, I guess.
comparing the validity of existing documents is moving the goal posts and pretty dishonest to the conversation.
you're applying for a new passport. to be shocked that at a minimum the pictures would look like you at the time of the application is pretty...I don't even know what word to use here. there's a way to make dealing with gov't agencies simple and as painless as possible, and then there's this.
The point that identity photos often look different from the person being identified isn't remotely dishonest to the conversation. It's the entire point, in fact: Does this actual human person look like this person depicted in this photo? That's why I bought up the passport photo situation to compare it to.
If you'll re-read more closely, you'll see that I was not applying for a new passport. I also wasn't working with a government agency.
By the way, it was simple and painless. I was told to bring photos if I had them; otherwise they could be done on-site for $9.99. I opened up my desk drawer on my way out of the house, and I happened to have photos. So I brought photos. I was told they were not acceptable, so I accepted the offer of an on-site photo, which took about 90 seconds, paid my fee, and went on my way. There was nothing difficult about it. I would not have saved myself any hassle had I left the photos in my drawer.
It's unclear to me why you have gone out of your way to misunderstand or misinterpret the situation, other than in a misguided attempt to be antagonistic, but it's not working.
> It's unclear to me why you have gone out of your way to misunderstand or misinterpret the situation
It's the internet. Even HN isn't immune to the Eternal September.
I still think Reddit is useful, sometimes, and I've got karma to burn for years, so I find it hilarious when my comments get downvoted into hell over some trivial issues. Since I don't care about imaginary internet points except to make sure that people can read what I post (I don't want to fall into the well of negativity on that), I don't delete the ones that get buried.
That poster you replied to is doing the kind of crap you see on the Reddit front page subs. They're almost all trash. You get upvoted for hivemind, you get downvoted for going against the grain. Regardless of the merit of the comment.
Hell, I've been downvoted here for my very milquetoast comment that maybe the clerk was trying to help you keep out of trouble in a country where you really need an IDP (different alphabet, e.g.). You can't downvote before you have a bunch of points here, and I almost never do - if you're wrong I'll try to help you fix it, and if it's just a disagreement then... that's life? You pretty much have to explicitly be an unprovoked major asshole or advocate straight-up genocide to make me downvote you.
So I actually shave my beard every time I get a haircut (so, let's say every 8 weeks).
What does 'recent' mean, since you have already acknowledged that temporal recency is irrelevant? When am I traveling? What's accurate to my current appearance? What if I started a cancer treatment that renders me unable to grow a beard?
Your flippant reply ignores reality, and these aren't even edge cases.
If you are applying for a new passport where you are needing these photos, the common sense logic from the person accepting/rejecting them would be do the photos look like the person in front of them. No? Reject. Yes? Accept. The flow chart is pretty simple.
The frequency of your grooming habits AFTER receiving a passport are irrelevant to the actual approval of a passport. This doesn't need to be hard.
> do the photos look like the person in front of them
To what ridiculous extent do you take that, though? You must be wearing the same clothes? You must be made-up in the exact same way? I think it's pretty clear that the test should be "is it obvious that the person in the photo is the same as the person in front of you" and somebody with a beard does look like themself, even when they shave that beard.
Of course, this raises other interesting questions: is it OK for you to use a photo of your identical twin?
Your first mistake was relying on Aus Post to do anything correctly. They cna barely deliver packages.
Hugged to death, here's an archive copy: https://archive.is/uPMjd
The fish cursor is a delightful touch lol. I especially appreciate not knowing where the anchor point is hahaha
I was confused why so many of the photos had a random fish it them until I realized that was the cursor…
Great project. It reminds me of the SNL sketch (can't remember which) where the character says "I like to keep a piece of sliced ham folded up in my pocket just so I have my own little secret."
https://snltranscripts.jt.org/06/06pporch.phtml
No video that I could find.
Yep, that's the sketch I'm thinking of.
> Can I smile in my passport photo?
> Yes. Make sure your eyes are open and your mouth is closed in your photo.
https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/passports/how-app...
> Neutral expression (not smiling, laughing or frowning)
Just got passports for my kids recently. My 14-year old was scowling in his photo. They accepted it.
They know that nobody standing in front of a customs officer that is looking at their photo will actually be smiling. So having it neutral or even scowling as your experience will be much more likely to match. /s
Some countries (definitely France) are implementing automatic passport photo checks. Those checks are not at all rigorous concerning smiles. I managed to get a photo I'm actually proud of in my new ID!
They do have problems with facial hair, though, IME.
But but but - I have resting happy face!
Ok, so the premise doesn't entirely work in your specific country.
It does in mine: https://www.gov.uk/photos-for-passports
My last Irish passport photo was rejected for smiling (I’m American born). The embassy lady said your expression is supposed to be “dour”.
Yet on the same page, they have
> Pose and Expression: Have a neutral facial expression with both eyes open and mouth closed.
In my view, neutral and smiling are incompatible, but I guess that is up to interpretation.
I'm an American. I smile at everyone.
You have a great day now you're so welcome.
I have the feeling that this should be presented in an animated way.
Like, you see somebody's passport, then it zooms out, the passport disappears and you see the entire picture.
Nice idea, maybe even tied to the scroll wheel.
I‘d love to see this in a book that has simple white pages with little cutouts showing only the passport picture of the next page. Then you turn that page around and see the full picture.
As someone who has actively written algorithms for passport security verifications, including photo strict requirements and validation, this post really struck a chord with me.
Awesome work!
Interesting. I have a friend who has been completely unable to upload a photo for his passport renewal online because he has a lazy eye.
I expected the layout, head size, expression etc rules to be more or less standard across countries. More than a decade a go our dual citizen baby got both passports at once and I thought I could use one of the US duplicates for the other country... an hour of fiddly standards checking, measuring, reprinting, cropping and I got something that would pass on the application but got a scolding that it was not quite right.
Reminds me of those portraits in the Haunted Mansion ride that expand when you go down the elevator.
My actual passport photo is like that. We were on vacation, sunny place, warm, no pant, only a boxer. And only nature around us, no white wall. So I put on a nice shirt, was still in my boxer, and wife held a white towel behind my face while someone took a picture.
On the original pic you could somehow see that it was a towel and not a white wall but some photoshopping took care of that.
Why a shirt while in underwear? A shirt looks "serious". And real people like that. They like a shirt, it looks serious. As to why the boxer underwear: for the same reason as in TFA.
Next time I'll show up with the complete picture and cut it in front of the person asking me for the picture.
"Wear a tuxedo for your ID photos." - Glenn O'Brien (TV Party, Downtown 81, the Style Guy)
I’ve always thought to go unkempt and unshaven.
This is so that I would be recognized from my passport if I was detained for several months in a sketchy country.
A decade ago, I was sent for a two-month business trip to China. I didn't have a valid passport (didn't need it within EU/Schengen Area) and had to make one in a hurry. I went to take my photo unkempt but freshly shaved. While in China, I didn't bother shaving, but I did get myself a haircut, that left me almost bald (communication mishap). One month in, I had to spend a weekend in Hong Kong to renew the work visa. On my way back, I happily handed my passport to the border control officer, and then spent terrifying 15 minutes trying to convince him, his colleague and then his superior, that the clean-shaved unkempt person in the photo and the near-bald, bearded person in front of them, are in fact the same person.
I had a similar experience where I had grown my beard and cut my hair since getting my passport - not over month, but years. I had trouble in Taiwan, and a manager was called. Looked at me for two seconds and said "Europeans", and they let me through.
Could you have turned your face upside down?
(or hold the passport photo upside down)
I may or may not have handed it upside down; unfortunately, passports have other features around the photo that help the guard know the officially correct orientation...
The brain has specific face-recognition machinery that mostly only works with face-up faces. It can be easier to objectively decide whether two photographs are of the same person if they are presented upside-down or sideways.
That's hillarious. Any chance you remember what you said to the Chinese hairdresser versus what you should have said to protect fellow HNers from such a mishap?
像往常一樣短 請把鬍子刮乾淨 我想要比較短的 禿得像個嬰兒的屁股 ?
I thought myself to be smart, so with help of Google Translate, I found the Chinese characters that were supposed to spell "3 cm"[0]. I copied them down, and in the barbershop, I proudly showed them to the barber, who nodded and invited me to the chair. The guy was stellar, but halfway through the cutting it dawned on me something is wrong. Turns out, what I thought was "cm" was actually spelling "mm"!
He would've likely double-checked with me if I tried to spell this out at the shop[1], but apparently I came across as someone who really knew what they want, coming in confidently with the order already precisely written in Chinese and all.
Lesson learned. I still think the idea was good, and I'd still go for giving explicit length (it's a natural fit, as it translates to cutting head numbers for the electric hair cutters). I'd just triple-check it next time, and not act like I have it all figured out.
--
[0] - Or thereabouts; I'm sure about the unit, but the exact number might've been something else between 2 and 6.
[1] - The barber didn't know English, but knew the metric system and arabic numerals, so we've confirmed the misunderstanding with pen and paper.
I just gesticulated wildly towards my head while making the "scissors" hand sign and loudly and slowly saying "HAIRCUT". I have no idea how that was misconstrued.
Huh? That also happened to you?
No, I was being facetious hoping people wouldn't look at the username :P
When I've needed haircuts in China, I've always had someone take me to a barber. Problem solved.
In one case, I was walking in a shopping area, someone approached me looking to sell souvenir artwork, I explained that while I didn't need that I was looking for a haircut, and she offered to take me to a barber provided I bought a picture. Everybody wins.
That’s hilarious. Thanks for sharing.
As Erma Bombeck said, "when you look like your passport photo, it's time to go home".
I was thinking the neutral-to-serious face requirement in passport photos is so that you can be easily recognised when you're being detained at the airport and asked to wait for 3 hours in an interrogation room. That's exactly what one would look like.
Or, like another poster said an Irish passport officer said - ‘dour’.
It’s odd, last time I went to the US they barely glanced at my photo
I believe the photo is encoded in the digital passport contents and the computer will check your face in the camera to see it matches. No human involved. Many countries have automatic passport gates now using this method.
If they already have your picture the agent will usually know who you are before you have even handed over your passport. The tech has gotten eerily good.
Don't forget to scroll down the page. The girl with the wine glasses is my favorite. And the guy taped to the wall.
This is the web I miss.
I once used a website https://makepassportphoto.com to create such photos for my family
This looks like what my experience taking a passport photo with a 8 month old mini human felt like.
Oh boy do I know the feeling. We live overseas and both our kids were born here. So basically the first thing we had to do was get them their passports. Trying to get a 2-4 week old baby to open their eyes and look somewhat at the camera was... an experience.
Tip: Swaddle the baby, lie it on top of a plain light piece of fabric (we used one of my work shirts) and click the camera 100 times.
Having said that though, I'm starting to think an 8 month old would be even harder based on the fact that they move :D
I can only imagine the challenge!
lol I thought these were AI generated at some point too just because of how silly they are
Organic + cage free is how I like my photos.
The rules (for passport photos) are designed to strip away any trace of individuality, which feels ironic for a document that's so personal
On other hand it kinda is document of subjectdom. You are ultimately subject of particular nation.
It's all about our role within a larger system...
I once had a conversation with a friend about passport photos. In particular, how much makeup are you allowed to wear? And, how much makeup if you're a man? Next day I went and got myself a driving license with a photo wearing black lipstick. The photo lady was unhappy but was unable to find a rule to justify sending me home.
Clever usurpation of expectations _and_ artistic.
tangent:
I wrote this: https://github.com/jftuga/photo_id_resizer
This program is used to resize large photo ID images. When image resizing occurs, a content aware image resizing library is used with its face detection algorithm to avoid face deformation.honest question: why is this needed? I would have thought that when downsizing an image, most programs would (should?) use bicubic interpolation to give a pretty accurate downsampled version of the image.
https://github.com/esimov/caire?tab=readme-ov-file#face-dete...
This shows an example of what can happen when you perform a basic resizing of faces. You will notice the distortion when this library is not used. When I had to resize 40,0000 photos, I noticed better visual outcomes when using this library for my testing set of photos.
A screenshot or example would help. Interesting idea.
Wanna buy any pegs^H^H^H^H toast Dave? https://maxsiedentopf.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Passpor...
All the fun stuff is happening out of frame.
It's very fun, but I don't think it's challenging any rules.
Hugged to death :(
Hug text: The website is temporarily unable to service your request as it exceeded resource limit. Please try again later.
This is so funny! Such creativity! The guy on the chair with his legs splayed up in an acute angle!
I took my own passport photo with my mirrorless camera, and a whiteboard as the background. It took a while to get it right, with no bright spots on the background and now shadows. It was accepted.
A tip for 10 years from now: take the picture with diffuse backlighting and you can easily blow out the background completely. For example, a sheer curtain in front of an outdoor window is just about perfect.
Ten years from now, hopefully you won’t have to be taking and printing your own passport photos. I haven’t done that in at least a decade, maybe two, in Europe. I go to the office that handles it and there’s a machine there that takes your photo.
The system here is simple, I just paid the 9,90 for photo, it is directly uploaded to the police and I am texted a code. I log on their system, put in the code. And pay. Passport is delivered to pickup location near me in week or so... Only issue is the signature and fingerprints, have to reserve time early or wait in line.
Here it’s simpler, the same machines handles everything. You make the appointment, go there, and done. Then it’s just the pick up.
Here it's simpler, you fill out the form on your phone, take a picture on your phone and then the passport arrives in the post. Then you eventually sign it after a bored border official passes comment.
Why go to the office when you can take a selfie with your phone and order your passport online?
Would be great to tape the whole picture inside the passport. I’m sure the passport officials could use a good chuckle. … or you’ll go to jail.
There's at least a few of these which may not be acceptable as a passport photo, due to the top of the shoulders not being visible.
What an amusing experiment! I laughed out loud many times. A novel way to explore the boundaries of something so stringent.
Could do a similar project for Zoom/Teams. I often wonder what's just out of view.
I especially appreciate this on the assumption that it will be pulled in as input for AI training.
I want to have a passport photo like this for myself
Well lhat is a weid website. Can unseet that anytime soon.
Integrate artwork with clearview. Check.
Where can we see/buy this artwork?
this really makes me regret doing nothing like this when I recently had my passport photos taken.
I had my photo taken by an employee at the post office where they submit the application. It would have been fun to walk in and start duct taping myself to the wall without saying a word.
Here (ireland), you can take your own photo with a phone or something. Though, they explicitly say "no selfies". I'm glad of this, since I can try multiple times to get a good one. Also, you normally get them in the post in two to three days.
I'll likely try something like this next time I renew.
I lost it at the duct hands
Now I want to see more 'extreme' passport photos — one taken from the top of a skyscraper, in the middle of a rollercoaster ride, etc.
Damn this is fire
This is what the internet was in 1998, before hustlers invented SEO.
Love it
calm.jpg
Genius lol.
I was expecting some kind of article about an issue with passport photos or some kind of exploit, maybe photoshopping so it looks like the person but fools automatic facial recognition...
but was pleasantly surprised instead.
Thanks for the good laugh. Looks great!
They're very funny indeed. I doubt they are AI-generated, they would the best AI images I've ever seen. If they are, there must be a lot of post-processing. But the artist being among others a photographer, I imagine they're actual photos. See other series on the website too, e.g. https://maxsiedentopf.com/19-off-amelie-pichard/
Thank you for the link!
If it's a "print" do not add changing images. Now we have on first slot "Passport Photos" story with plinking photos, which makes me wanna click X ASAP...
