Surfergirl

My passport will be coming up for renewal next year, and I LOVE my current passport picture! I heard that you can extend the passport or somehow renew it and keep the same photo -- anyone heard of this? I've googled and haven't been able to come up with anything other than an extension for limited passports.

P_M

I renewed mime last year. As I recall, the instructions said the photo must have been taken in the last 6 months. Sorry.

SeaUrchin

You will probably love your new picture too when you look at it 10 years from now when you have to renew again.

When I just renewed mine I added up how old I'll be when it expires and it was quite sobering.

Happy traveling!

SuzieC

Yes, I loved mine from 10 years ago too.

suze

Hey, you guys beat me to it! I never care for my passport photo when I get it... but sure as shootin' 10 years later it looks pretty darn good. Happens every time!!

LoveItaly

How funny, I have always hated my passport photos (except for the very first one) and then hate to give up the photo when it is time to renew my passport. My photo taken last year (at the PO) is so ghastly. Trust me, no matter how bad your photo is it could not be as horrible as mine!

P_M

My new photo is awful too. My hair is a mess, I wish I had put more effort into it. But then it occurred to me that I usually look pretty disshevled when I go through customs. Maybe it's best to have a photo that looks like I would after a 10-hour plane ride. But I still hate it.

haggisgirl

I hope you don't live in Canada because now when you renew your passport you're not permitted to smile when your picture is taken. Are you visualizing this: white background, unsmiling person - isn't that just peachy for going through customs!

SeaUrchin

It was like looking at a date from the Jetsons when mine came back saying it expires in 2015 !

Also if you go to the Autoclub they will take your pic with a digital camera and you can get an immediate retake. I took about four retakes and then just had to accept the fact that that is just how I look!

maitaitom

"Also if you go to the Autoclub they will take your pic with a digital camera and you can get an immediate retake. I took about four retakes and then just had to accept the fact that that is just how I look!"

I got mine at the AutoClub, but the way they take your picture, it makes your head look about three times as big as it really is (I'm not an Animal!).

So I spent another seven bucks at a photography store, and it looks much better than the Auto Club version, albeit nothing like that young guy in 1995.

SeaUrchin

That's funny! So maybe I don't really look like a balloon in the Macy's parade?

I should have had professional make up and hair styling before saying "I'm ready for my closeup Mr. DeMille"

SuzieC

I had my last one taken at a photo shop. Now, did the guy taking the picture care to tell me that my cowlick was sticking straight up (Dennis the Menace?) or that my suit color was half stuck in, half out? Nope! VERY nice picture... but the passport IS MINE MINE MINE and equals my "freedom"

jeffwill4you

We had our Passport photos taken at the Walmart foto center for $6.00 each and when my wife saw hers she almost cried
because they looked like mug shots LOL!
We still have them but went Olan mills
and had them retaken for $35.00 each!
but she was happy.

dln

What did the late Erma Bombeck say? "When you start looking like your passport photo, it's time to go home." >)

abbynicole27

U.S. passports last ten years? Wow, you guys are lucky. In Canada they expire after 5 years.

Christina

I loved my photo from 20 years ago, also. They'll never let you keep an old photo.

You can smile in photos in the US, I was, and now there are places that take them with digital cameras where they show you the results and you can keep having them reshoot until you like them. One big advantage of digitals. I had mine done at Motophoto which is a chain that does film processing as well as that.

LoveItaly

Hi dln, If on my travels I look like my passport photo I will have to go home, in a coffin!! Really, you have no idea how bad my passport photo is!

dln

Oh, I don't know about that, LoveItaly. The one I had taken at Walgreens yesterday might just take the cake. It's so dreadful it's beyond crying. But, hey, it gets me where I'm going to go.

Tries2PakLite

I had my passport photo taken at Eckerd's where the girl was nice enough to do 3 retakes. I thought the picture was OK, but when my passport came back I was so upset -- who was that person?

I had a vision of the folks at Passport Renewal Central passing around my old passport, with my younger, thinner self inside, and laughing about the fact that the years were not treating me kindly. Wouldn't you if that was your job? Whoo hoo -- get a load of this one!

LoveItaly

"who was that person?". LOL. Good description!

And stupid me, had photo taken the day before my hair appointment (color and cut). Yuck!!!!

Honest dln, no ones photo could be worse then mine. Please trust me on this statement. And the lightening, good grief, bags under my eyes as though I had not slept in three days or I was completely hungover.

Oh well, probably how I look after flying from westcoast of US to Europe. But really, the photo is gross.