I just had THE most frustrating experience getting our baby a passport photo and I have to tell you about it (to hopefully save you the same aggravation!).
I’ll absolutely be using this method for all future photo updates for our family members’ passports and you should too!
Before we get started, I want to say that there is absolutely nothing wrong with going the classic route of having your photo taken by an associate at a photo center at a pharmacy or shipping service. In fact, that’s a much more straightforward way to go about this process so if that works for you, go for it!
I began this entire endeavor because I vividly remember what a difficult time we had getting Sophie’s passport photo when she was a baby (seen above). Both of my girls have been very nervous around strangers so when we took Sophie to have her photo taken for her passport it didn’t go very well. She was in tears when someone that she didn’t know tried to take her picture, which is obviously not optimal, especially for a passport photo! This doesn’t even take into account that taking a passport photo of a baby is already an incredibly frustrating and challenging situation because you have to get the photo *just right* according to government regulations and squirmy babies are rarely cooperative.
So, in an effort to avoid the troubles we had previously experienced I decided to take Chloe’s photo at home and then go to a location like Walgreens or FedEx to have them printed out for me. I looked up all of the parameters for achieving the most optimal photo to hopefully be accepted by the passport department and got to work.
I chose a space with a light, neutral background, I chose Chloe’s clothing in a color that would be best for the photo, I set up her high chair in the space to get the best light (while avoiding harsh shadows), and tried to get her attention so she’d look at the lens on my phone while trying to get her to keep a neutral expression. By some miracle (and about 50 photos later), we finally secured a couple of options that I felt pretty good about.
After preschool dropoff the next day Chloe and I went straight to our closest Walgreens to buy some prints to include with her passport application!
When we got to Walgreens we discovered that you have to plug your phone into one of the service computers to give the Walgreens team access to the image you want printed. However, you can’t select which photos you want to upload and the computer program forces you to upload ALL OF YOUR PHOTOS before you can even start searching for the image you’d like to print. As a mom and someone that uses her phone for taking photos for her blog, I have HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of images on my phone. Because of the high number of images on my device the upload process took an absolute eternity.
Once my images had finally finished uploading to the service computer, the photo options available to select to print were presented to me… and nothing that I had taken in the past month was even accessible for some reason? The most recent images it presented to me were from March (it’s now early May). The service member and I decided to unplug and try the process again… and after another ~15 minutes there were still no images available more recent than March. 🫠
I pride myself in being a very patient and understanding person, but after spending 45 minutes in one place (since I couldn’t leave my phone) while trying to placate a hungry & tired baby and then not even being able to accomplish my task had me pretty frustrated… so I ended up leaving to try my luck at FedEx.
Spoiler alert: FedEx was also a dead end. They only print passport photos if an associate takes them. 😩 I was feeling pretty defeated at this point so I took a break from the whole thing and got Chloe home to eat and take a nap. During her nap I Googled to see if there were any other alternatives to try to get these damn passport photos printed — amazingly, there’s an app for that (that’s partnered with Kodak for the printing aspect!).
Desperate for a solution, I downloaded the PhotoAiD app to my phone. The cost for the photos was essentially the same as what I had been quoted at Walgreens so I decided to take the risk and give it a try.
The app was super simple to navigate, gave excellent advice for taking your own photo, and also did such a great job at optimizing my photo by editing Chloe’s arm so it wasn’t a visual distraction. The process only took a few minutes to complete and couldn’t have been easier.
* I edited the above photo prints due to the sensitive nature of government documents. I wouldn’t have shared at all, but I wanted to share the adjusted arm placement and photo size / quality *
There are multiple ways to receive your images: a high quality digital download (available with every purchase), or you can elect to have them printed. You can choose between: (1) ordering them for pickup at your local CVS, Walgreens, Wal-Mart, etc., or (2) have them mailed directly to you.
Given my recent experience with Walgreens, and because I’m not in a rush, I opted to have them shipped to our house. They were estimated to arrive in 2-3 days and arrived within that time frame! My only note for the shipping option is that the photos were sent to us loose in a standard envelope so there was a high probability of them getting bent in transit without anything else in the envelope to bolster them (even just a small piece of cardstock would have sufficed!).
Thankfully, only our envelope got bent and the photos were unscathed, but I’d say this is the only area for improvement that we encountered across the whole process.
If you want to give the app a try, you can save 10% on your order by clicking here.
I hope this post helps you optimize your passport application process and hopefully avoid any unnecessarily frustrating situations!
Sending hugs —
xx, Natalie