(This is part of my personal newsletter for 2021.)
Not having a driver’s license and being too lazy to go get a state I.D. card from the Department of Motor Vehicles, I use my passport for identification. Plus, it doesn’t hurt to Be Prepared, just in case one is suddenly offered the opportunity to fly to Paris for a week! So in March of 2021, I prepared to renew my passport.
The U.S. government website has extensive information about obtaining a passporthttps://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/passports/how-apply/photos.html
The State Dept. urges people to apply by mail rather than going in person to a passport center, as one used to do, and all but forbids the in-person method unless necessary. I later learned that, normally, one can process a passport at the Central branch of the Sacramento Public Library, and that, normally, there is actually a passport center in the library of CSUS (the nearest college: California State University, Sacramento). I don’t think I have to tell you what “normally” means. So I read all the pages of instruction, then filled out the PDF and printed it.
The passport photo is the next challenge. Even though unflattering driving license photos are legendary, a passport photo ought to be a step above, don’t you think? Decades ago, the photo had to be done at the passport office or processing center, had to be in black and white, and no smiling was allowed. However, this had changed by 1982: my passport photo from that year features full color and my toothy smile. (It’s actually my favorite photo ever taken of me.) But in 2011, I had to try three times at three locations before getting an acceptable photo; that one was taken at a portrait studio in the mall, no longer there. So one day in March last year, after applying more make-up than usual and deciding on a lipstick (an item that we women haven’t really needed for the past couple of years), I strolled down the street to the camera shop that I use.
A clerk, not one I’d seen before, helped me right away. She had me sit on a stool in front of the white screen, making it difficult to balance while combing my hair and looking in my little mirror. Then she told me that I could not smile with teeth showing. Say what?? I’d practiced smiling before leaving home. I do this because I tend to have a crooked smile (as you can see in some of my Facebook selfies) and I have to make a deliberate effort to pull up both sides of my lips evenly. And if I try to smile without showing teeth, I look quite grim. So I protested: “The State Department website says that one can smile, and has example photos.” She insisted that photos with teeth showing would not be approved by the software used at the shop, but she agreed to snap a few shots of me with teeth and then several of me close-mouthed.
Sure enough, the only photo that the software approved shows me with an odd expression and a crooked mouth. I asked to see the other photos but she insisted that there was no point, as only this one could be used. I found her manner and attitude quite unsatisfactory. Not only do I have my own ideas about good customer service, I’ve had training! I actually complained to a manager and when I got home, I started to write an article about customer service. My hope was to include some experiences of poor customer service garnered from friends, but that plan has not succeeded so far. If you have a bad experience to share with me, please do so. I’d still like to write the article.
Anyhow, in case you are wondering about passport photos, I found out that stores that do passport photos, such as camera shops and drugstores, often use a Kodak “biometric” system that supposedly approves only photos that the State Dept. will accept. As I have explained, the Kodak system seems to be less than accurate. Furthermore, the government does not require that you use this system or even that you go to a store. You can just have someone take your photo against a white background, and adjust the size.
As I mentioned, ordinarily one can take one’s documents to a passport center and let the staff there take care of ensuring that everything gets to the government office properly. But with this, as with so many other things during the pandemic, we are now mostly on our own. So I filled out the forms that are online and sent all through the P.O.
When my passport arrived, I decided that I’d been unnecessarily fussy about the photo. For one thing, there are these wavy lines across one’s photo now, which tend to even out the differences between the ugly and the beautiful. For another, one could say that my crooked smile looks like a cynical smirk, not a physical impairment. Furthermore, my hair looks a really gorgeous red. And finally—NO ONE is going to pay any attention to this photo other than to decide if it is really me!
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