Smile Pretty
One thing that we definitely knew we needed to have for our travels was a huge amount of passport sized photos. Why? Well, many of the countries we are traveling to require visas that you can thankfully get once you arrive in the airport (rather than mailing your passport to an embassy and waiting for the paperwork to go through). With this great time saving option you are still required (in some countries) to have passport sized photos, proof of an outbound ticket, and proof of sufficient funds (so they know you can sustain yourself in the country without working).
Also, some activities require that you give them passport sized photos- like gorilla trekking or possibly scuba diving on the Great Barrier Reef. My point of view is- better safe than sorry. That would really suck to fly all the way to Rwanda to see gorillas and then be told we need passport photos (I;m pretty sure there isn’t a CVS on the corner that will take them for you, instantly print them, and only charge you $7).
So, we took a trip to CVS, coupons in hand and purchased 20 passport photos a piece. I know this seems like a lot, but like I said, better safe than sorry.
For me the main problem with this idea was taking the photos. A combination of things makes taking a serious photo extremely difficult for me.
One, being that I have refused for all of my childhood and most of my adult life to take a serious photo (it just makes me feel silly to pose, so I react with a crazy face). I mean come on, photos are a little silly. Anyone who takes themselves so seriously that they give an inanimate object ‘the eye’ is a little crazy. In my life silly breeds silly, thus never a straight faced photo.
The second thing is that I am a smiler. When I smile, I really smile. You can tell I am happy. That is what smiling is for, right? So my entire face distorts, my eyes close, the edges of my mouth reach back to my ears and my neck all the sudden shows every tendon (I don’t know why, maybe the strain in my face makes my neck jealous and it is competing for attention).
When I go anywhere to take a serious photo it goes like this:
“Look here please. On three we will take the photo. Smile. One, Two, Three. Miss, you CANNOT smile like that. Please smile less next time.” My first response is to not smile at all. “Miss, you can smile a little, just not as much as last time”. Then I half smile and end up looking constipated, which they for some reason always think suits me, and then they hand me my constipation license or passport photo. UGH!
Maybe as we travel I will get better at taking photos. Who knows. But for the record I don’t think that smiling should be taken so seriously, I doubt a terrorist is trying to trick anyone by distorting their face by smiling too much. Oops, maybe I shouldn’t have given away the idea. . .
