6 July 2005

This might look easy ..

Now that Rose is Australian (as well as American), she needs an Australian passport. The hardest part of this is just getting a passport photo.
So Lana and I visited to our local CVS pharmacy who can assist in this kind of thing. We could have done it ourselves, but figured it would be easier to get done with the right tools and sizes and lighting.
The extremely busy lady behind the photo counter came out with her low cost digital camera in hand and looked at us inquiringly. We lifted Rose and said "Rose needs a passport." "Oh." she replied with a worried expression, "I haven't done one this small before." So the comedy began.
First we tried Lana holding her up with me making funny gestures behind the girl's head. Then we tried Rose on my shoulders with Lana gesticuating wildly behind the girls' head and sides. The key was to have Rose close enough to the pull down screen to avoid a shadow without her being distracted by it and have her look at the camera. It was a game of hide and seek, trying to get the camera to click when Rose wasn't looking elsewhere.
Finally, with a smiling crowd of onlookers grateful for some free entertainment, we snapped this shot.
Phew! A communal photo if ever there was one.

Update: Aargh! US passport photos are 2" square. Australian ones are 1.5" x 2". So we had to scan and crop the photo anyway!
Update 2: Nope. That won't work. The Passport photo requirements are pretty strict and we are going to have to do this again!
Update 3: We went to try again today. First we had to take a photo to see if it could be made the size we required. The girl was very helpful and the closest we could get was 1.6" x 2" close enough. After printing the photos we measured to check that Rose's head was within the size allowed. Australian pasport rules require the head be between 32mm and 36mm high. The girl asked if I could help as she had never read a mm scale ruler before. Fortunately the length from the very top fluff of hair to the bottom of her double chin just made the smaller size allowed. Phew! We got it! (And a fine roar of approval for public education!) (Update 3 posted by Lana with editing by David)

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