julies

I'm just curious if anyone was aware of this rule. It is time to renew my passport, so when I was at Costco today I decided to get my photos taken. I had a sweater on that has an extremely loose turtleneck. The guy working the photo desk told me that standards for photos are really rigid. He was able to take my photo only because I was able to pull the neckdown to reveal my collarbones (this is apparently how much of your neck you have to show). No coats on either. Would you have known this?

Michael

I'm skeptical since one would not see the collar bone of a man wearing a tie.

elberko

Photo requirements are near the bottom of this page. I think the guy was having a little fun with you...


http://travel.state.gov/passport/get...first_830.html

julies

You've got me. He seemed to be serious though about the way he'd been trained to do this. In fact, he suggested that I try to pull the sweater's neck down so I wouldn't have to make a second trip.

J62

I suspect he was hoping to get a look at more than your collarbone.

nytraveler

You can wear whatever you want except a Groucho nose/mustache and Ronald McDonald wig.

(Seriously - they don;t want you to wear sunglasses - but no issues other than that.)

StCirq

I thought the only deal was you couldn't smile. My latest passport makes me look like I'm about to spank someone...and not in a good way.

Julies..was he a cutie?

NeoPatrick

Did he help you lower your neckline? I think he was "funning" with you. That is really absurd.

And I agree with Michael. Are you suggesting I couldn't wear a coat and tie since it wouldn't show my collarbones?

Dukey

What did you do when he told you you couldn't wear your underwear either?

seetheworld

What a creep!

P_M

The guy who took my photo told me I had to be completely topless!! Silly me, I thought he was a professional who knew what he was doing!! Oh, man do I feel foolish.

blh

The lady who took my passport photo told me I couldn't wear my glasses. When I got home and looked it up, it said "sunglasses". So........next time I think I will print out the rules before I go! I knew she was incorrect, but I didn't want to take the time to go somewhere else.

LoveItaly

When did the rules change that you cannot smile in your passport photo? My daughter had her photo taken this last summer and she is smiling in her passport photo. And there is nothing in the rules from the website that one cannot smile. Of course most of us do not smile after seeing our passport photo, lol. Julies, that fellow at Costco is a a creep. I would complain the next time at Costco.

Mamaw

My PPP I am wearing a beautiful gray turtleneck sweater with a killer tan and the whitest teeth. If I could only just stay like that forever. Hey a girl can dream.

nolefan1

I wore a turtleneck to cover my turtleneck...he was jerking your chain!

NeoPatrick

Do any of you gals remember the days when female graduation portraits were taken with the "wrap" put around completely bare shoulders? That's how it was done in 1964 for our high school portraits. I remember many girls being pretty upset by having to strip to their bra and then having the male photographer "manhandle" them as he kept reaching and adjusting that "shawl like drape" to get it lower and lower. Can you imagine the outrage of sexual harassment if that happened these days?

GSteed

Use 'search'. Request, U.S. Passport Pictures. Re: Turtleneck. I assume that the photographer relied on the sample picture of a female. I suggest he was mistaken as the instructions seem to require only a full head view. Nothing is said about neck or shoulders. Note the male picture sample. Print out the instructions and take them with you to the photographer!

Carrybean

NP, my high school senior picture was like that. It was V-necked & the photographer's assistant (female) clipped the back with a clothespin. All girls' Catholic high school & since the assistant was female, I didn't get manhandles.

Christina

From reading some other posts on this topic before, I think there are some guys who take passport photos who sort of make up their own rules. The no-smiling thing is another one of those passport myth rules, I think -- it was discussed on here sometime last year by someone who said their photographer claimed you couldn't smile, either (US passport). I also noted that there wasn't any such rule on the passport website, and I was smiling in my last passport photo and it wasn't that long ago -- probably 2006.

I wouldn't ever get a passport photo taken in clothing that really obscured my head a lot, though, nor a turtleneck as I don't think those are what you'd usually wear for a portrait photo, so I've never tried it. Some turtlenecks can be really high, and others not much different from a regular collar, though. Some guy pulling your sweater down to reveal your collarbones is creepy IMO

julies

Let me clarify. He didn't pull it down. I did. He suggested that I do this so I wouldn't have to make a trip back another day to get my photo taken when I was wearing something different.

And, let me tell you, this would have been a big ego booster to me if his reasons had been to catch a glimpse of my body. I am old enough to be his mother, and it's been a long time since I was in the "hot babe" category.