baby's passport photos - has anyone's been rejected?

[IwantYourNickname]

I had some passports taken yesterday in a rather decent studio and the employee seemed to know well the requirements. However my husband is a bit paranoid and says that the face is too small (it measures 32 cm from chin to top of the head and not from chin to forehead, if this makes any sense). Has anyone else had a problem with this?

We are applying for a European passport, but should be the same requirements for UK passport.

As I understand it they try and be as lenient as possible with babies as it's so hard. Friend of mine had hers rejected because a bit of her arm appeared in the picture, but I would say yours is probably fine.

Our passport photos of our DS were accepted by the UK passport authorities, but rejected by the SA passport office.

If you think the photos are okay, I would proceed as every office have different criteria for rejection of photos..

FWIW, when I had our DS's photos taken at the studio they did say they would refund/retake the photos if they were rejected...

Ooh yes ours said that as well nagapie.

Depends on the age of the baby, I was advised by the passport office that if it's a very young baby they're not too fussed about the photograph. The one thing that will guarantee it's rejected is having an adult's arms/hands visible in the background.

she's 6 months and there are no arms or hands showing up. I was holding a white bedsheet between me and DD.

Just out of interest, what on earth is wrong with having an arm in the picture (provided it doesn't obscure the baby's face of course). I cannot think of any reason. It seems very petty.

For UK passports there are two different sets of head dimensions, for adults and young children.

i used check and send at the post office, so if the photo was no good it would bounce earlier.

thanks chippy, that gives me hope, although in the German embassy they don't specify anything for children.

dd1's got rejected when she was 18 months becasue her hair was sticking out of the end of the photo!!!! she had bunches in that i had put in deliberately that day so that you could see her face clearly, she has always had long hair.

in the photo you see her face, there were no arms or legs being shown, she was facing the camera straight on but a tiny bit of the side of one bunch was not in shot.

imo they are far to fussy. i used check and send, thankfully so i would suggest you do that.

ds's (when he was 4 months old) was rejected for having a hand in the corner. It was his hand, and honestly noone I showed it to (I was proud of the pics that came out when I held ds up in the photo booth, with me crouched underneath!) ever noticed it until we did the check and send!
bloody ridiculous I reckon.

thanks for the advice on check and send, but it's not for the UK passport and it has to be done in person.

How does the check and send work? can I have it checked somewhere, even if I'm not posting it?

Our pics were rejected cos LO had her eyes closed. Place we got pics taken at assured us that it didn't matter - but it clearly did!

LOL, I could have posted this! Got photos of us all taken yesterday, ds4 is only 5 weeks old. He has a very worried expression in his photo but how can you get a 5 week old to have a "neutral" expression?

Not babies but just had my dd and ds's pictures rejected - they are 10 and 12. I stupidly did them myself rather than professionally and the backgrounds were too dark (although still a light background) and not the right distance from the camera. Have just sent new ones - professional this time - off again. This is for British passports but sent them to Consulate in Amsterdam. We travel in 3 weeks so am panicking

Oh yes, and when ds3 was 9 months old we got his done and the photographer had to keep re-doing them because he kept sticking his tongue out at the last second!

I had some done at Jessops and they were rejected by the post office check and send service because his head was too big. It was a bit of a pain as I had to then get someone else to validate them. There is a grid they use to measure the photos against which Jessops obviously didnt use otherwise they would have noticed his head was too close to the camera. Grrrrr. In my experience they were pretty strict about the requirements (of size anyway)

CHeck and send they have a look at everythinbg you are sending to make sure it is all in order and nothing is likely to be sent back. I think it is rare that the photos bounce if they have okayed them.

If the rules for the passport photo you are getting are similar to the UK passpotr rules I would be surprised if they wouldn't have a look at it for you. You have to pay for the check and send service, but it's more than just a photo check so I think they'd be pretty mean not to have a look.

Worth a go.

My DC pics for pass ports at age 9 and 7 were taken by me and printed on a normal PC printer and amazingly passed first time. Perhaps I should tkae kids passport pics for a living oops sorry not allowed to smile.