Taking a passport picture of Eliana has been a fun challenge because of the ridiculous rules about passport pictures. There are strict guidelines about the passport picture and they were obviously written by a jaded federal government worker who has never met a baby before. For one thing, the background must be completely white, not showing anything or anyone supporting the child. Sure, Eliana can sit up by herself, but we weren't sure a passport photo store would have a high chair for her to sit on. And then there's the rule that she must be looking straight at the camera, with her mouth closed and eyes wide open. Catching Eliana with her mouth closed proved to be a challenge. For the past 8 months of her life, we've been encouraging her to smile and that proved to be a hard habit to break.
"What is going on?"
"Hi there!!!"
"Wait, I'm about to sneeze..."
"I'm sooooo bored."
"I've got this crazy hangover."
"Ha ha, tricked you."
"Watch me fly!"
"I'm getting angry!"
At this point, we gave up for the night. The federal bureaucrats and their arcane rules won. Two days later we tried again...
"Not this again!"
"Hi there!"
"You're funny!"
"My parents are weird."
"How many pictures are you going to take?"
"I'm tired of this..."
"How many pictures are you going to take?""I'm tired of this..."
And that was the picture we ended up using. While this is not the Eliana we know and love, this picture meets all the criteria. Even though she looks a little depressed in it, there's nothing in the rules saying you can't look depressed for your passport pictures. So after two nights and forty-two pictures laters, we found the one (we hope).
1 comment:
Actually, I think the rules encourage pictures of depressed people.
When we had Isaac's passport pictures taken, they had Cindy stand behind him and put a white towel over her. Voila! White background and sitting baby :-)
Post a Comment