Passport photos and mug shots

Hi there

I was reading the other day about that convict guy in America who looked so gorgeous in his mug shot that lots of women are swooning over him.  Apparently, he's been offered a model contract when (if) he gets out of prison.



And Hugh Grant looked great in his mug shot.  All that traumatic stuff happening to him, and he still looked boyishly adorable ...




I have never had a mug shot of myself, but my passport photo is horrific.  The first attempt at the camera shop was so bad that I trotted out of the store and went down the road to another place.  The photo from the second shop was just as horrific.  So I went to another place.  And then another ...

I well remember seeing one of the "I Love Lucy"  tv shows way back in, probably, the sixties.  Lucy just couldn't get a good passport photo of herself and ended up having dozens plastered all over a wall whilst she tried frantically to pick out a good one.  If I'd been able to afford it I, too, probably would have ended up with my lounge walls completely covered.

The one passport photo of me that was let's say 5% good, had my fringe down across my eyebrows.  The passport instruction stipulated that no hair should be obstructing the eyes.  After I explained my sad plight to the lady at the passport office ("Honest, I've never had a good photo of me in my life!  This one is the best of a bad lot..."), she said "Okay, we'll see if we can get away with it."

And I did get away with it.  My fringe-down-to-my-eyebrows photo now adorns my passport.  But even the photo thingee machine in the States at the airport on arrival rejected it three years' running  as I stood on the painted footprints and stared at the camera.  No-noooo,  it's computer brain was obviously yelling, you are not the person in this photo.  Go line up over there and be told off.

And you, my five readers, think I am going to show you that passport photo?  Dream on ....

***

J and I have done 3 swims for July.

Getting that new passport photo

Hi. I have to get a new passport, and this means getting a new photo. I've never had a good photo taken of me. How come people like actor Hugh Grant can look cute in mug shots when they get arrested and I look terrible when I actually pose?
I picked the most well-known photography shop in town. No slap-dash chemist-shop-across-the-road for me, no siree. Nothing could be left to chance to obtain the photo that naturally would be bad but, hopefully, wouldn't be utterly terrible.
Well, the photo was absolutely positively utterly utterly utterly terrible!
Was it truly me in the photo? It couldn't be. I looked ancient. My hair was... grey! (oh, thank goodness that was just the light but what sort of photographer allows a subject to have grey hair?) I had crow's feet. I had wrinkles. There was a sort of a wart-like lump under my eye
I had practised non-smiling for, well, minutes before-hand. Practise didn't help.
To make matters worse the photographer had said "No glasses allowed. Take them off."
"What?" I'd rather have taken off my top. "But my glasses are me. I can't take them off."
"New rules," said the photographer. Glasses show a glint. No glints allowed."
I hadn't plucked my eyebrows. The photographer moved in close. Real close.
He was loathe to let me look at the finished product. After I'd all but wrestled the digital camera from his hands, I understood why. He obviously figured I would run from the shop without paying.
I was told to return in 20 minutes for the photo. I perked up. "You can photo-shop it, yes?" I beamed. "Make me beautiful. Make me like Jennifer Aniston please..."
"Sorry," the guy said. "That's not allowed."
There's one bright light on the horizon. I'm going to the chemist-shop-across-the-road next week for another go at a passport photo. And if that photo's terrible, I'll try another place. Then another ...
byeeee