I just paid £17 to have my passport photo taken and it is NOT MY FACE

[HarrietKettle]

I mean, I suppose it must be.

I look like I've just been arrested for drink driving offences, under the influence, and it's 4am in a downtown NY drunk-tank.

This is going on my ZSL pass for my charges and I to visit the zoo (I'm a nanny) so not ideal.

I applied make up. I brushed my hair. I wore a jaunty shade. I skipped along to Snappy-Fucking-Snaps on Charlotte Steet, London as I thought they'd take a nicer photo than my local one in Acton.

The lady asked me which one I wanted, they were all shite but one didn't make me want to cut my head off, I said that one please, she robbed me of my £17.99 and I said I'd pop back in half an hour.

I SWEAR TO GOD SHE SWITCHED THEM to the worst photo of my face I e ever seen. I look awful, I have never looked so awful, and if that is honestly my face I'm cancelling the extortionate wedding photographer we've selected and having my one year old nephew take the pics, at least he's likely to chop out my head.

I now have to present a picture of me looking like a criminal with addiction problems to my new boss for the ZSL card, and I'll have 7 monstrosities left that will never see the light of any day.

I looked fine in the mirror beforehand. Fine.

My fiancé says I'm like a slightly less Chanel-ed version of Natalie Portman (we've had his eyes tested and they're grand but I know he's slightly biased) so WHAT THE FUCK happened. The image is seared on to my brain forever. And the godforsaken ZSL card.

Anyone else look shite when they thought they looked ok?

DISCLAIMER LIGHTHEARTED I know I'm lucky to have a face etc etc

This thread is hilarious

The light on mine seems to be very bright so I somehow look bald but with a bowl cut at the same time. There is an unfortunate shadow over my upper lip so I look like a less attractive adolf hitler.

I have two work visas in my passport, the first one I am really happy with (rare occurance) my hair looks quite nice, my eyebrows are good and my ‘resting bi* face’ isn’t too gloomy.

The second however is awful, messy (I thought stylish...I was wrong) hair, no make up, bags under eyes, RBF in full force and fatter, it genuinely looks like the opening to one of those awesome crappy American documentaries titled ‘Women Who Kill!’

Mine is hideous too. I normally have a fringe but not allowed to for passport so just look really wierd with a long horse face. Nearly puts me off travelling but not quite....

When I started my current job, two photos were taken. One was taken by a professional photographer with proper studio lighting and a nice blue background. I look stunning in it. The other was taken by the receptionist with a dodgy webcam. In that one, I look like a supercilious Victorian school mistress who's about to foist a dunce's cap on you.

Guess which one is on my work pass, and also pinned to the wall in the staff room?

I forgot to mention that EVERY SINGLE TIME we pack to go on holiday and DH is getting the passports out of his 'special safe place' (under his socks), he grins mischievously, catches my attention and sings from begining to end (yep really), 'he used to bring me roses, I wish he would again, but that was on the outside and things were different then'. For you young uns reading, it's the theme tune to Prisoner Cell Block H and I bear an uncanny resemblance to Doreen in my photo.

I have quite big curly hair, think mop like and it does fall over my face on my passport photo but it did pass. My hair fills the photo but there was nothing I could do about that apart from probably wet it and try to slick it back or cut it off, luckily I didn’t have to.

The booth I took mine in had the lighting at about chest height. I have no fucking chin. I look like a hairy thumb.

Padstowonthames

You can have a fringe in passport photos... I was worried about this too but it's fine. I checked after my sister had swept hers out of the way for her photo and ended up looking..... well...... not like her (being diplomatic!)

I got DP to take my photos with my phone against a pale wall at home, then used the online service to upload and check, and it was accepted without any problems.

Not lucky enough to have a face though!

Hello everyone! Glad tidings to you one and all, this has been nommed and triple-nommed for Classics and we are going to do it.
Stand by...

Shucks you guys!

Maybe me old Crimes That Shook Britain mug ain't so bad after all!

Your descriptions of your own passport mugs totally made it though

I was inadvertently terrified and simultaneously sickened yesterday, by the sudden appearance of one of my latest passport picture leaping at me from the junk drawer. I immediately binned it. The horror put me off my dinner.

You know that dress you spent five months looking for, trying on so many, rejecting them all, and finally finding 'The One' that makes you look fabulous. Taller, slimmer, younger, fresher. The one that is 3x your budget, but makes you look and feel amazing. You know that dress? Hate to tell you. None of it is true. I know. Saw the photos. Gasped. Felt ill. Deleted the emails. Unfriended that friend so would never have to see or talk to them again. Damn you to hell, inviting me to your wedding!

Fucking cameras. Fuck right off, and take your mirror pals with you.

I wore a white shirt for my work ID badge. In black and white...

I look like a floating sumo head. I wear my badge back to front ( and have done for eight years! You never get a new badge, even if you loose it! They use the stock sumo head photo, I did try.....) so no one can see my photo it’s so bad. But on the plus side people know where to post me if I’m found lost somewhere...

Not my passport photo, but my travel card from about a million years ago (the 90s) looked as though I'd just cut out a colour photo of Myra Hindley and put it on the card.

My last passport photo was so hideous that it made me want to cry. The only good thing was that every time I showed it at customs, they officer would look at it, look at me, look at it again as if to say, "bloody hell you're not that much of a munter!" so at least I knew it was a bad photo and that I wasn't a total monster.

I'm reading more and in stitches here! I LOVE this thread!

I thought I had it sussed when I did get some photos taken, in case I had to have ID.

Not stopping until I had pictures I was happy with, I had two sets taken in a Photo-Me booth.

Sitting forward on the stool, face powdered to avoid shine and slightly darker to not look so pale, head held forward and down with my face looking slightly upwards (to help avoid the dreaded thumb' appearance), my eyes wide and a few practice stretches of the mouth to avoid looking like a lopsided stroke victim- I did it all. The photos looked like me. I was thrilled and smugly went away knowing that if I required new ID, I had it ready.

When I enrolled into college, I showed up with messy hair, sunscreen shiny face, scruffy clothes, all the documents I needed and the 'good' photos.

Only to find a digital camera set up to print ID.

In amongst all the reflective flaring, there's a big cheesy grin and my wind blown hair going off in three different directions.

D’you know what you should have done, OP? There’s a place on Oxford St (the big primark end near Marble Arch) and a random door beside one of those bad souvenir shops (really making sense here, been out for work drinks). Anyway they do EPIC passport photos. I look fabulous in mine. Way better than in real life. They let you check them out before you pay and you can do them again if you aren’t happy. A man with a camera. They’re not even expensive. Have done them for both passports, one colour, one b&w (have dual nationality and each country has a separate requirement). And I look great in both. Can’t be a coincidence so. I’m not that good looking. The guy with the camera is a legend!

www.passportphoto.co.uk
I think this is it OP. £6 bloody .95. Now you know for next years zoo pass. #sultrybabe #nofilter as the kids would say. You’re welcome.

I’d ask to see it next to the version you picked to see whether the exposure/ contrast has been altered or something.

I actually look pretty good in my recent passport photo - although I specifically orgnaised to get it done immediately after I had the trial for my wedding hair and make up as I figured if I was ever going to look good in one it would be then... So technically I spent £74.50 on my passport photo! Totally worth it!

I used to get my photos taken by a local photographer at his shop.Small rural town. All good then he had the gall to retire. Went to local chemist to have passport photo so didn't travel much for next ten years

£17.99?! What a rip off! £6 in central Scotland.

I have prepared a data gathering checklist to be issued to passport officials at all major airports/ports:

Myra Hindley
Adolf Hitler (female)
Thumb
Generic murderer
Generic terrorist
Baader-Meinhof
Voldemort
Floating head
Corpse (exhumed)
Corpse (open casket standard)
DUI
Bag lady

And for my worst passport photo, the category of:
Demonic volcanic bastard spot like alien spawn erupting from chin

I definitely don't look alive in mine, and my eyes are dark, empty holes...I like to think that in real life I manage to look alive and even quite average.
I'm sure the officials flinch when they look at my passport each time, which would indicate that its even more scarey than most

Crying with laughter
I think i'm glad after reading this that my latest photo only makes me look grey and old but certainly alive and the requisitely normal features not holes, digits, squints or multiples

Three attempts to get a passable photo for last passport. Need to get renewal. This year and dreading it.
Re being lucky to have a face—- whenever I complained about anything my old mother used to say “”Well a blind man would be pleased to see it””