Adventures in Infant Passport Photos

It should come as no surprise that George and I are anxious to get Madeleine's US passport. Not only does she need it for international travel (gone are the days of baby traveling on mom's passport), but she also needs it to be her photo identification in order to apply for her New Zealand passport. What an international baby!

I was seriously dreading taking the required passport photo. These are the passport photo requirements for the United States. Of note, Madeleine's photo needed to be with her eyes open and a neutral expression on her face without anyone else in the photo. Several people told me that they took their infants to a store for the photo, but I wanted to at least attempt the photo at home first. Thankfully, I'm happy to report that it wasn't nearly as painful as expected, and the results were much cuter than expected.

I purchased a flat white sheet for the background, and dressed Madeleine in contrasting colors. The government's website suggests using a white sheet draped over the carseat, but the photos we took like that scrunched her face and created far too many wrinkles in the background. Instead, we got good results by laying her on the sheet flat on the ground and pointing our flash away from her face. I think this whole process would be nearly impossible with a baby who didn't have the neck strength to hold her head straight without support, and now that Madeleine loves to smile, it was rather difficult to keep that beautiful smile from showing through.

Without further ado, enjoy some outtakes:

Not centered.

Too excited.

Eyes not open and too excited.

Too excited.

Tilted head.

Not looking straight on.

Not looking straight on and too excited.

Too excited.

Too excited.

Too excited.

Not looking straight on. 

We finally settled on this gem as the official photo:

We uploaded it to www.epassportphoto.com to get the proper cropping and proportions, and then had them print it to the local Walgreens for pick-up the following day. The whole deal cost less than $10.

We just submitted the application yesterday, so we should know within two months whether the photo has been accepted or rejected. If it's rejected, I guess we get to do this whole little dance all over again. Have any readers experienced infant passport photos?