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

My passport photo is about 5 years old . I'm all jowls in it. Sadly 5 years on I am increasingly jowly and it is now a fairly realistic representation of me. I look like Myra Hindley on my driving licence!

I’m still surprised people use snappy snaps for passport photos - most of the time they won’t pass the check and they price you up far too much. For my American work visa photo they said it would be £25, for 2, I said I’d check the shop across the road, £10 for 4.

fairly recently we got passport photos for various reasons - so differeng size requirements from snappy snaps.
it was fine 6£ per person

I took an accidental selfie and looked like I'd died a couple of months ago and they forgot to bury me
However I had botox for the first time couple of days ago and am waiting for it to kick in, I keep waking up thinking I'm going to have the complexion of a boiled egg

Mine isn't too bad, I just went to the photo booth in Sainsburys and I have managed to use nearly all my photos before losing them as they're on my passport, driving licence and diving qualification cards.

I hope no-one who works for Border Control is reading this thread, they won't be able to keep a straight face at work from now on.

I've got a new passport and look like a very glum, elderly serial killer. At least in other ID cards you can smile a tiny, tiny bit - not so in the passport.

My one consolation is that it makes my passport very slightly less stealable, as nobody is going to want to fake looking like that.

Snappy Snaps are good though if you need non passport dimension photos for certain visas (and they have an index for dimensions for all sorts of visas and official stuff)

< cannot believe I’m saying something positive about Snappy Snaps >

The no specs thing is THE WORST. It took me all my attempts to be looking at the bloody thing properly - and now whenever I use any of those bastarding automatic passport machines it takes me three goes to get through the controls because I can't properly see where to look at the bastarding machine, even though it is really well lit with giant lights.

Last time I got an equally myopic passport control person helping me and she was not very impressed with the technology either, apparently they're a nightmare for a lot of people with actual disabilities as well as us short sighties.

I feel your pain, I look like I've just been arrested for shoplifting on my passport photo. I won't hear a word against my local Snappy Snaps though as they are dead professional and do a great job very quickly (like I can upload a photo on their website and they have it printed and ready to collect within half an hour or so). They also know all the rules about what's allowed on passport photos. My shoplifter photo really wasn't their fault.

Could be worse
I look like a brunette Myra hindley

As long as it's not noticeable in the photo, would I be unreasonable to use industrial strength masking tape on the back of my neck? My passport's due for renewal in 2 years, so I'm thinking ahead of ways to disguise my turkey wattle neck.

I've concluded that the reason passport photos are shit is so that when you arrive at the cold, rainy airport at 4am after a 6 hour flight with no sleep, the automatic machine can take one look at you and go, "Yep, that's them all right." Works a treat for me anyway.

I'm actually jealous that my dh and dc passports are due for renewal.
I got my photos taken on a wet Scottish morning before I could drive and they were fine! I was amazed.

Home an hour later and they had completely disappeared. Searched high and low and they were nowhere to be found, so, due to the fact that I leave everything to the last minute, I had to go out again and have them redone.
I am not blessed with glossy straight hair, so the resulting photos look like I have a blonde afro and have been dragged through a hedge backwards. I had no option but to use them as the shop were good enough to do the second set for free.

Hate looking at the damn thing.

I wore my glasses on both of my driving licence photos (recently renewed with new photo) and tiny smile and both times accepted no problem, I just did them in a photobooth. I would never be driving without my glasses so they should be on the picture in my opinion!

My dad's driving licence scares me! It's a total police mug shot! No glasses and basically a scowl, I got a fright when I first saw it, doesn't look like him at all

I've just received my renewed driving licence back today.

Because my passport and driving licence were both renewed 10 years ago, I had to go to the Post Office to renew my DL and get into one of their tardis-digital-photo-booths attached to the 'system' as my passport photo is, currently and similarly, 10 years old.

Well, I look so pale and ghost-like (I don't think I'm either) all you can clearly see are two large nostrils

I don't even have a big nose or large nostrils.

And don't get me started on the 'digital signature' that you have to do with a stylus on a 'pad'.

I'm actually dreading someone having to look at my DL for ID

I frequently get dressed in a charmingly bohemian yet stylish fashion only to discover I am being stalked by a mad old bag lady who only appears when I walk past mirrors and plate glass windows.

I wish she would bog off and leave me alone

Haha, I also try to do the slightly eccentric bohemian look and in photos I look like a cross between a fat Helena Bonham-Carter and Granny Murray.

The 'not being able to smile for ID photos' doesn't help matters either as I look so bloody miserable. I variously have looked like a Russian prison guard, giraffe (weirdly elongated neck that I'm sure I don't have in RL) and currently, a ghost with beige accents and almost no eyes or eyebrows despite drag queen levels of make-up.

dingdongdigeridoo and TheFirstMrsDV

I was allowed to smile for my work pass, 'oh good' I thought at least I'll look better than my passport pic. Nope ! just look slightly more manic !

My DDs first passport always makes me laugh. She was 7 months old so the photographer in Jessops laid her on a white round pillow on the floor. She’s looking directly at the camera with a big “O” mouth (as the flash went off and gave her a fright). She’s got the bluest eyes in the photo and up until she got her new one, every immigration officer made a comment about them and how cute she was....didn’t get it from her mum as my photo is hideous

In the asda picture booths (or my ex local one anyways!) you could have 3 tries with a £5. I spent £45 before calling it a day and I genuinely look like some kind of fat, square potato and my expression is so gormless it's unreal.
I have to have another 3 done for an upcoming visa application and I'm dreading it so much. Just the thought has made me genuinely consider returning to the UK instead of getting my permanent residence here

I'm not generally surprised when I look terrible in photos as I look terrible in real life too

I am, however, continually shocked and appalled at my voice on recordings. I've had to ask my DH if that's what I actually sound like in one we took of DD2 yesterday (as I don't hear that voice when I talk in real life) and apparently it is. I never want to speak in public again.

Oh OP I love your post.
The funniest but was how you casually put that you’re lucky to have a face!!
Brilliant. Xxx

You have to retake them.