Wtf is it with passport photos I look like I m on the wanted list

[pippapipps]

Just spent half an hour trying to get a good passport photo to upload and every one of them I look like an angry collapsed face criminal
I just wanted a decent photo for once my passport photos always show the worst of me I just can't do straight face photos.. give up I'm pissed off now and will have to upload another shit photo
Anyone else

Yeah, I look like one of those "faces of meth" photos you find on Reddit in my passport photo. I have never actually taken any recreational drugs in my entire life but according to my passport photo, I am totes responsible for a huge underground meth lab for sure and am probably on some government watch list somewhere.

I hate mine. I was sort of sucking my chreks in to get cheekbones but look like that Mandy character instead. My work pass makes me look like the woman in black.

i was travelling in/out of the Middle East years ago with a passport with my much younger self on it - the passport control chap said I looked nothing like my photo - I flippantly told him marriage will do that to a woman 😂 he duly took my now ex husband off for a strip search - still makes me laugh to this day 😂😂

Baby DS looks like a potato with googly eyes stuck on it in his.

I had one ten years ago when I had very bleach blonde hair. The photo was a bit light but when I got the passport back it was so light my hair blended in, my nose had gone and I just looked like eyes and a mouth. God knows how I travelled on it for 10 years!

DH always remarks that his driving license photo looks like Carlos the Jackal (it does) but as no-one knows who that was he just gets blank looks.

They're probably looking at him and thinking he looks absolutely nothing like Eddie Redmayne, tbf.

Thank you, these are brilliant 😄

@murasaki @Sunnysidegold I posted the photo of Aileen Wuornos, because that’s what I look like in mine. However, upon closer inspection I realise that she looks a lot better than me but it was too late for me to edit my post.

So I’m basically bigging myself up, boasting that I look like Aileen Wournos

My driving instructor looked at the picture on my provisional licence and sounded very surprised that I look reasonable in it!

My passport, on the other hand... I'm pale enough to rival Wednesday Addams, and by the time I'm fed up with the passport photo machine, I imagine that I probably have her death stare, too 😂Unfortunately, it needs renewing this year, so I dread to think what the new one will look like! After these posts, I'm considering booking myself in for a haircut and style, plus a makeover in preparation for The Photo That Will Haunt Me for the next 10 years!

I have to renew mine shortly. I too have considered splurging in a make-up professional. Except that I don't want to see her face when I say "I want you to make me look like a human being. In a passport photo".

I look like I’m being trafficked in mine. I’m pale and blonde so all that shines through is the dark circles under my eyes and I look so bloody awful I want to sponsor myself. My hair cast a weird shadow so it looks like I’ve been recently choked too.

My poor Dad didn’t time his very well and had to have it taken when he was participating in Movember. He very much looks like East German secret police despite being a lovely jolly fellow. They always pull him for extra checks. Only two years to go and he can have a new one.

I wore a cream jumper and now I’m just a potato-like head floating in space 🤣

Oh stop! I’ve just had to renew my driving licence and I look like a very badly made-up concentration camp wardress in drag. I think I’ll have to ‘lose’ this licence and get a new one. I can’t stand this for the next few years.

Love this thread - nominate for classics!

I booked in at Max Spielmann to get the passport photos done last year, thinking if I pay for proper ones they might look better. Nope. I'd been stuck in traffic on there way there due to an accident, so had to leg to make the appointment on time. The results can be best described as 'pink and distressed'.

I decided to brave the photo booth for my licence renewal, as the passport ones were so bloody awful. Did hair and makeup. Tried the smizing thing. Still came out looking like Jabba the Hutt's angry MIL.

I tried with my current one because the colour went weird in my previous one and I looked like an obese Wednesday Addams with a snout. Security in Berlin laughed at it. I have now progressed to Chucky.

I looked like Pat Butcher in mine at the age of 45. It really upset me!

I spent hrs making sure my hair and makeup were perfect, had photo taken at PO where my fringe was side parted and scraped off my face ('hair mustn't cover face!') to end up looking like Myra Hindley with a drinker's nose. I'm in my 70s so this will be my last passport!!!

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news but if it's a newish driving licence they'll use the photo they have on file. Just be thankful you don't have my work id. My head looks as though it's been squashed by some mediaeval torture implement.

My work pass photo makes my face a lot rounder than it is. As I have a side parting and my hair is tied back, I look like Frank Sidebottom.

Oh no! you've just reminded me that my passport ran out 18 months ago. I never renewed it as I wasn't planning on going abroad any time soon. Why didn't I think of getting some passport photos done before Christmas. Now my head resembles a bog brush from chemo haha 😂. I definitely can't get it done any time soon now 😂. I can't cope with that photo for years to come 😂. What a shame DH will have to take me somewhere lovely and expensive in the UK instead 😉👌🏻Thankfully my driving license was done a year ago.

What about if your appearance has changed? In my driving licence I have shortish black hair and it done before my nose job, in my passport I have long blonde hair (grew it out and decided to go blonde) and have since had a nose job. I look like two entirely different people in both IDs.

I have shown my driving licence to people before to collect parcels and they didnt believe it was me

Bringing this one back!

I took mine yesterday and am absolutely horrified. I used a photo booth and took all 3 attempts. Should have taken a hair brush. I have a spot by my mouth and an area of redness on one cheek. I usually have nice, clear skin but of course I don't right now! My jawline also looks soggy.

How many of you take your own and do they pass OK? I'm going away in 5 weeks and need to renew.

I look like a meth head in mine.

Scary thing is, passport control don’t even do a second look at me to double check, so that must be what I look like in real life.

Which is nice…

How it went for me, pasted from another thread:

I had to do mine in January as it had gone over the 10 year rule and I'm going away in a couple of weeks - didn't know at the time how fast they were coming back. Couldn't do it before then as I had a little mini break between Christmas and New Year.

I wanted to wait until I'd done my hair but I was ill over Christmas so didn't get round to it for a few days. Also needed to get the light right in our house. We have a lot of white walls but the weather was shit so it seemed very gloomy - didn't think that would get a suitable photo.

Finally the planets aligned and I'd done my hair and the light was good so I asked DP to take my photo, and the first one seemed fine but when I uploaded it, said there were invisible shadows across my face. He took a few more, which it liked none of 'because it couldn't tell me clearly from the background'. This is a photo of dark haired woman wearing a bright green top, standing against a white wall .

By now the light was starting to fade and it could have been game over for that day. I finally realised that it was my 'done' hair that it didn't like so I kind of smoothed it down (normally have a bit of a Caitlin Moran back combed style) and finally it accepted it, even though it was starting to look 'shadowy' as we'd had to put the light on by now. So I have my new passport and for the next 10 years that and my driving licence show me with shit hair.