First Baby Passport

starbump

Does anyone have any fool-proof tips for getting your baby to pose for a passport photo?

Also, can anyone help explain this:
http://www.ips.gov.uk/passport/apply-countersign.asp

I understand it to mean either someone on the list of acceptable people OR someone who has known you for two years. Can, for example, someone at my local post office certify the photos/application without knowing me for two years? I don't have any suitable long term local acquaintances.

Murphy_The_Cat

For MTK2, we sat her in a rocking chair (with a plain towel draped over it), just before bedtime and held her milk bottle just underneath the camera and shot off loads of digital piccies. It worked a treat. Just be sure that when you take your piccie to the Post Office it fits into the very stringent size criteria.

as regards someone certifying your piccies, could you ask someone from your previous locale to do it for you ? Perhaps your ex-employer, or a manager from your ex-employer ?

carolinela

When getting the photo's for my babies, i found a photo print shop that charged five pounds for them to take the picture. I cant take a photo and thought it would be cheaper than trying a photo booth.

Murphy_The_Cat

carolinela wrote: »

When getting the photo's for my babies, i found a photo print shop that charged five pounds for them to take the picture. I cant take a photo and thought it would be cheaper than trying a photo booth.

& if the photo print shop will print the piccie in the required dimensions for a fiver, IMO, it would be a fiver well spent :beer:

tee_pee_2

my best friend did it for me. We lay baby on a white sheet and just clicked and clicked again and again with the digital camera until we found a good one, (40+ times) Took memory card to Boots and charged 49p (I think) for 4.

Bargain just need patience.

davidlizard

For the photo, we put a white sheet on the floor, laid her on it, and took about 30 photos with a bog standard digital camera. We found the one that met all of the guidelines on the form (eyes open, mouth shut, not screaming etc). We took the pictures on the highest resolution possible, and got one of my mates with a decent printer to knock a couple of copies off, chopped them to size and sent them off.

I think (I stand to be corrected) that there are on-line places or even high street places that will produce decent quality prints from digital camera pictures.

TBH I was in for finding a photo of a baby on the web and sending that off, as 90% of babies all look the same anyway, but the wife would not have that.

Re the bit about countersigning - cannot help, except I have found the passport office to be very prompt when emailing them questions. The list is fairly wide - do you not have friends partners/parents/siblings/kids who are on the list ?

Best of luck.

scbk

Not related to a baby photo, but for my own passport that I just received, I took the photo myself. Pinned a big sheet of white paper to the wall then held the digi cam at arms length and took a few snaps. Stuck them on the pc, chose the best then touched it up in photoshop.#
Used http://www.epassportphoto.com/ (free) to sort out the sizing then printed it off on photo paper
Total cost = a few pence and 30min

Andy_L

starbump wrote: »

I understand it to mean either someone on the list of acceptable people OR someone who has known you for two years. Can, for example, someone at my local post office certify the photos/application without knowing me for two years? I don't have any suitable long term local acquaintances.

No, they have to both be on the list AND have known you for 2+ years

mancitychick

It is defo worth using a local photo shop. Here it costs a fiver for 6 pics ( I know you only need 2 but its sold in sixes) but they will cut them to the exact size the passport office require.

Could your GP not do it? (They may charge though, as my docs when living in London offered this service but it cost a tenner and that was 4 or so years ago.) Lucky for me Irish passport doesn't require the persons signing to even know you, they just have to be sure of your identity.

Murphy_The_Cat

I know that I'm battering on about the correct sizing of the picture of the baby, but it is vital to being accepted by the passport agency. I'm talking about the eyes being in a certain part of the picture and the head being within a certain range of dimensions.

If it isn't, they'll send it back to you, again and again and again.

Becles

I just applied for a passport for my baby, and renewals for my 11 year old son and me.

We all had pictures taken against a white sheet, then I edited them on the PC to make them the right size. You get a sheet with the passport application that tells you the sizes, where the eyes need to be etc. It gives some examples of good and bad pictures too.

All 3 were accepted and we have the passports now. If you are confident with photo editing on a PC it's worth a try.