Passport Photo for New Bub - How??

[littlepickle]

Hi,
I am in the process of filling out the paperwork to get a passport for dd who is currently 3 weeks old. The problem is, I have no idea how I am going to get a decent passport photo of her, How has everyone else gone about getting a passport photo for such a little person? I dont suppose they would be able to take a photo of her at the post office as this would mean me holding her up in front of the camera.
Can anyone help??

Cheers

[reAllytee]

This is what i found on the passport website :


We will accept home photos for newborn babies cut to size. Only
the baby’s head and shoulders should appear in the photo. A
neutral colored background should be used and the baby’s eyes
MUST be open

So try your best im sure you can get something thats workable even taking in a few options for them at the office may be a good idea !

[littlepickle]

Thanks Allyoo
I will give it a go:fingerscrossed: Thats a good idea - taking in a few different photos for them to choose between - I wouldnt have thought of that .. still getting placenta brain here I am afraid :banghead: :o

[arthursmum]

hi, i worked in passport processing for a little while and they can be really fussy (not so much with babies). when we got Arthur's (he was 2 months), the guy put a white sheet over my shoulders and chest and leant A up next to me, i kind of leaned back a bit. you could also put bubby on a bed with a white sheet-friends have done this- wave something to get her attention, take a pic and then play around with the print size on your computer, i'm useless but ours has a facility for pp photos. (assuming you have a digital and the software. if not, could you borrow it?).
does that help? feel free to pm if you have any other questions

[tickle]

We got O's done at a couple of months (I think) and we just laid him down on the background thing, dangled some keys next to the camera and it turned out perfectly. I guess it depends on how aware he is of everything, can you wait a few weeks? Good luck.

[melfunction]

Dh takes passport photos of newborns all the time.
To do it at home - Lie baby on floor with white background. Make sure shoulders are square, head straight and eyes open. Have the photo taken from just below shoulders with space above head.

The passport office is very picky, so if you want to make sure, take the photo into a photographic shop or chemist that does them. They will be able to tell you if photo will be rejected.

[Lambie]

Good advice Melfunction:thumbsup:

We need to get a photo done for Em so we can take her home to NZ in Feb to meet the rellies.

[Pixie]

I had mine and her's done at the shop she looks gawd dam awful lol so did I but they accepted it :D

[Lil X-men]

We just took Xav into Kodak (although Rabbit photo does it to) and got it done there.
I was worried about the pic being rejected as we didn't have alot of time to get the passport done, so getting it done at the shop saved me a bit of stress worrying whether it was acceptable or not, and cost about $10 I think.
Alot of places wont photograph kids though as it can be tricky, so the places I mentioned above are your best shot, if you you don't want to do it at home that is......
Even with the photograph, being good it took two months to get his passport
(NZ passport) sorted and was really stressful I had to fork out and extra $150 to get it urgently as we travel in a week and halfs time.
I know aussies passports are quick, but if you are getting a kiwi one be sure to do it well in advance of travel. Sorry blabbingnow :ecomcity:

[Lambie]

hehehe...my NZ passports still in my maiden name..."So no, I don't know who that man and screaming child belong too"

[shed]

I was just looking this up yesterday. It says:

For photographs of new born babies, we suggest lying the baby on a plain coloured (preferably white) rug/sheet, taking a photo and printing two copies, which we will cut down to a passport photo size. The child's eyes must be open, the photo must be as close as possible to a front-on view of the babies' head and shoulders and there should be no obvious obstruction.


There are some example pics too, of a newborn. its got the sizes and everything. you wont stuff it up.

[Roopee]

I used to work in a Kodak store and we used to suggest to bring the baby in when they are most awake. We used to lay the baby on a white sheet or blanket and stand over the top of the bubba. The baby usually looks at the person who is standing over them.
Another thing we used to do is set the flash to go off first (without actually taking a pic) as this causes the baby's eyes to open and widen and then quickly take the pic.
its not as hard as you miht think and Good Luck

[Merlion]

What I did (we also had a week for the passport to get to us as we were travelling 10 days later) was I called the photo place near my parents place and asked what I needed and they said if i had a white sheet or a white bunny rug I could lay it under her in her pram (Jess was about 3 1/2 months old) and they would take a photo. I did this and after 2 shots (with a digital camera) it was perfect. took it to the passport office and they complained about the photo looking to big (Jessica pretty much centralised in this photo) but I said to them with a proof of receipt that a proper photo place did it otherwise I would to have it get redone. Thankfully a colleague of mine worked at the passport office and let pass through.

We had done express and it was done in 2 working days though we had to go and pick it up from the offices. Otherwise it would have taken 5 working days. I say go to a place which does take digital photos for passport photos otherwise it might get rejected and you have to get redone again and again and again until it looks right.

Also just a bit of a rant. Why do they take a phot of a baby at 3-6mths and expect the passport to last 5 years. Babies change heaps in that time and Jessica doesn't look anything like her phot 15months later

[littlepickle]

Thanks everyone for your advice I am going to have a go myself with the camera later. I think the digital photo machines in K-mart give you the option of ordering passport sized photos, I could have imagined this however!!

[red crayon]

sorry, i'm probably coming a bit late but we used the photo that the people at the hospital take when the babies are newborns. it was accepted.

prior to using that photo, i tried to get one done of spencer when he was a week old at our local chemist. long story short - boiling hot day, chemist full, head chemist takes photo of spencer lying on his back on a piece of white paper, spencer rolls out of the shot just as it's being taken, does an enormous poo, embarrassed mother takes child out of chemist and vows never to return.

good luck!

[natasha]

I also had DD's photo taken by a woman that came round in the hospital. The picture was just of DD's top half in her cot lying on a white blanket( professional). We didn't even think about them not excepting it. lol

[sam's mum]

Sam has got a passport from Netherlands as well and if you think that the Aussie office is picky.... they got nothing on the Dutch.

We had to go back three times to get the photos redone. They have rules about the distance between the eyes in the final photo and not quite looking straight on and proportion of background to face and only being able to see the face, no body parts below the shoulders. sheesh.

The embassy (in the city) is also only open in the mornings and there is usually a queue of people. The papers all get sent to the Netherlands and then the passports come back registered mail, but this only took a couple of weeks.

[littlepickle]

Well, I took a few photos today which I am going to get printed at kmart tomorrow :fingerscrossed: one of them at least will be acceptable!
Unfortunatel, i cant use the hospital photos as bub was laying on her side for that..

[arthursmum]

hi pickle, i forgot to say that the website

https://www.passports.gov.au/Web/index.aspx

is pretty helpful. the most common reason that an application is rejected is that the size of the head and shoulders within the photo are incorrect. there are VERY clear guidelines available but some people just don't read them or don't care.
try not to get bubby smiling, that's nono!
good luck, hope it all goes well

[LucyE]

To save stuffing around, I'd call your local professional photographer. Get them to take a digital photo of bub lying down on a white sheet (better than white paper) following guidlines already mentioned (eg. correct size, eyes open, mouth shut etc). It will cost slightly more than the ordinary passport photo places but will be worth it for the decreased hassle. Then either ask for a digital copy of a good photo and print it yourself at a Kodak machine or get them to do it. DFAT may be picky with passport photos but if it saves trouble at customs internationally, then it's worth it. Also, I have heard of people digitally enhancing photos (eg. red eye reduction etc), please do not do this. The photo may be rejected.

[mythreelittlemonkeys]

we had ours done in photo shop - they just put sheet over capsule and put her in it and snap! but she has 12 chins and looks really odd cos of the position she was in...but accepted!!

[draught]

LP - after having a hideous photo of DD1 for her passport where she looks like Jabba the Hut (achieved by taking her to a Rabbit photo place and having it taken in her pram with a white cloth behind her) we used the advice from the passport website and took our own photo of DD2 - on a white sheet on our bed. I took about 15 photos and then picked and cropped the best, took it to Rabbit and paid $8 (I think) for printing and it was accepted with no dramas and is soooo much nicer than the one of DD1. Good luck with it all!

(Of course now you get to spend the next few years as we have travelling with two gorgeous little people who bear absolutely no resemblence to their passport photos and wondering about how international security actually does work!!)

[ellebelle78]

Hi there :-) My little daughter is 7 1/2 months old, and we needed to get her passport photo done so we can take her with us on our honeymoon in a month (we are taking her to visit her grandmother in NZ). I went to the main post office in a major city 20 kms away from where we live (our local post office does not do photos and our little coastal town does not have a photo store), I knew they did passport photos as I has rang the 13- number before I decided to travel all that way (as I do not drive so I had to take the bus). When I arrived and asked to have her photo taken the woman asked how old she was and I told her. She then just looked at me and said "sorry, we cannot do baby photos" and suggested I try the photo store across the road. I went there and asked them, the girl behind the counter asked the photographer, and he also refused, and referred me back to the post office! I was furious by the time I got home, as my bub was not well as it was and I had taken her all that way by bus for nothing. So I rang the passport office and told them of my predicament (as I could not find anywhere close by to take the photo), the lady suggested I do a ring around, she also said that the particular post office I went to should have taken the photo as they had the resources to do it (it seems they just couldn't have been bothered to take it). I ended up finding a photo store (from one of the major chains) that would do it, they were a 45 minute drive from home but that didn't worry me too much as my hubby to be was having the weekend off. They took great photos of our daughter, I couldn't thank them enough :-)

So my advice is to ring around and see if the photo stores will do them before bothering with the post offices, they generally do them with a digital camera and they are great quality :-)