Taking your own passport photos

[lostkat]

Has anyone ever taken their own passport photos before? I need to get a photo driving license as well as a new passport very soon. However, I always look completely whited out in photo booth pics and am lothed to pay £3.50 for an awful pic which will have me looking horrendous for yet another 10 years.

I'm confident that I can take a much better photo than a passport booth and have read up on the rules & regulations (cream/grey background, not smiling, nothing covering eyes yada yada). There's nothing which says it has to be done at a passport booth, it just needs to be printed professionally.

I'm just wondering where can print them. I've found BonusPrint so far. Surely more people offer the service than that? I just want a straight forward printing service. Not one of these which offers to crop it and mess around with it for you.

[Burble]

I took a pic a few years ago for a colleague and it was accepted with his passport application. I'm pretty sure that as long as it is to the specifications then it's fine.

You can't wait to get rid of that current photo can you? ;D

[LeperousDust]

Is there no reason you can't print it off yourself either? Not actually looked into rules and regs myself at all, just seems silly if you can't?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photo_identification
Rules and Regs (http://www.ips.gov.uk/passport/apply-photos-standards.asp)
Huzzah wiki to the rescue!

[lostkat]

Just had another look on the passport website and it says that it has to be printed on gloss white photographic paper. My Dad's a Pro Photographer and has a super dooper printer, so I'll take it over and get him to do me some prints.

Pawl - No. I literally CANNOT wait :D

[divine]

I've just printed them on normal inkjet based photo paper before and no one said anything.

Just as long as they are the correct size I don't think they care exceptionally, I think they just want to put off clueless people printing their own off onto normal plain paper and sending that in.

[Psymonkee]

Really must look into this as my local photo shop closed down and they still did photos the old way :(

[lostkat]

Have sent the pics over to my Dad to print out. It just says glossy photo paper so it should be fine. There's a useful little guide on the passport office website for pro photographers so you can check that the eyes line up etc. My pic is now a lot more acceptable.

[LeperousDust]

Lets see :D

[lostkat]

Now that's a privilege reserved for people lucky enough to go on holiday with me :p :D

[Kell_ee001]

Had my passport pic taken a couple of weeks ago - absolutely hate it! But they did fiddle about for ages with it making sure all the sizes were exact and I was pleased they did when the post office did the same thing before they'd even send it off (still without a 100% guarantee it would be ok!). I honestly couldn't believe how strict and specific it all was. All sorted in the end though and got passport, with horrid pic, back a few days later :)

[BBx]

Thought this said 'Talking to your own passport photo' :o

Think its time for bed...

BB x