subject: Passport Photos Are Really Bad [print this page] How is it that passport photos can be so universally bad that everyone has a poor passport. No matter how hard you try it's likely that your passport photos looks bad, doesn't look anything like you, and that within a few months of getting a new passport you'll notice that it already seems out of date to the extreme that you can't imagine why you ever wore those clothes or had that haircut.
There is a joke which explains how air travel is purely an experience design to embarrass people when they have to show their passport at borders and security check points. And it's true, I don't know anyone who is not mortally embarrassed by an awful passport photos. Passport photos seem to have the universal gift of being able to make us look small, unattractive and often, of a different gender or nationality all together. It's lucky that there are flights from Washington to Pensacola and similar domestic flights that don't require passports.
We are similar blessed that when travelling within Europe in the region that is signed up to the Schengen agreement that European citizens don't always need to show awful photo. But what is the reason that passport photos are so bad? I genuinely think it has something to do with the fact that people have to look serious in their photos. This is simply a facial expression that people have a problem with.
Forced seriousness is not simply, and it's not nice to have to show the photo that represents this face every time you board flights from Philadelphia to San Juan or flights from New York to Toronto. It would be much easier if people were able to smile in photos: then we could distinguish people by their teeth too. Say cheese!
