Passport Photos

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

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

> 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 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.

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.

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

> 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

> 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.

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.

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 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.

The IDP feels like such a scam. I have to get it every year and it is so annoying.

> When they ask what religion, pick one with beards.

I just love this sentence.

New photos: $9.99

Fake dressup beard: $0.99

I know which one I'd choose.

Your first mistake was relying on Aus Post to do anything correctly. They cna barely deliver packages.

I took a phone selfie against a white wall and it was accepted fine.

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.

$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.

> 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.