4 ms·

Passport Photos, from 'Anything Goes' to Today's Mugshots

• refurb 4y ago
  The big reason for the mugshots of today is facial recognition. That's why some passport photo specifications have become, well, very specific. No smiling, neutral expression, eye open, etc.
• leobg 4y ago
  Look at how more human these people look. Looking at such an old passport, it’s as if you see the whole person. With our modern mugshots, you just see an object.
• avidiax 4y ago
  This reminds me of an article I read about street vendors in Southeast Asia offering ID photos, which was a bustling business, since most people at the time had no photo ID whatsoever. They had an interesting technique you save money. IIRC, they did a paper negative, paper positive transfer to avoid the need for negatives. Something like this: https://www.alternativephotography.com/wet-contact-printing-negatives/ https://www.alternativephotography.com/wet-contact-printing-... Aside from the idea that most people had no ID, the more interesting tidbit was that these vendors were known to scam people by giving them photographs of other people! Apparently, the whole ID/photograph thing was so novel that many customers didn't notice the substitution.
• gumby 4y ago
  I didn't have a passport until I was six or seven, and until then traveled on my mother's passport -- her photo included me, her, and my sister. But back then the photos were bigger. The article doesn't point out that passports were introduced on a temporary basis during WWI, and most countries that issued them did indeed do away with them at the end of the conflict. However they remain a prominent example of scope creep.