I tried to save a few dollars on my new passport. What was I thinking?​on February 24, 2025 at 6:00 pm

Look, I don’t love the photo from my last passport either. But it’s slightly blurrier, more flattering. And I’m 10 years younger, let’s face it.

In fact, nine and a half. Passports don’t really last 10 years if you’re a frequent traveller because you need at least six months left on your document to enter many regions. Which is why I find myself standing on a line with my completed passport application at the post office in January 2025, not this July.

Despite the attempts of the post office clerk to upsell me a priority passport (an additional $300 for two-day processing or $104 for five-day processing) the new passport arrives after three business days. If you check the website, more than 95 per cent of passports are now processed in under 10 days. I’m glad I didn’t fall for the extra fee.

I have a new passport number and expiry date which is problematic because it has taken me nine and a half years to remember the last. The passport is so full of pretty colour images of Australian landscapes, wattle and holograms, it’s like a child’s storybook. We are presenting a very sunny face to the world’s immigration officials. They have to let us pass, right?

But back to the photo. I remember it was the custom decades ago to sit with a professional photographer for your passport photo. If you look at some passports from the early 20th century, there were fewer rules. People were photographed sitting on their favourite chair, playing the guitar, reading a book – how they’d like themselves to be seen.

While the full-face mugshot has been around for some time, I remember people hiring professionals so they could put their best face forward. The passport is a precious time capsule, full of stamps and visas from the places we’ve been over a decade.

So, being careless about your passport photo can feel a bit disrespectful, in a way.

So, being careless about what kind of photo you present in the front of it might be seen as not being respectful, in a way.

I blame digital. The last good passport photo I had was about three passports ago at a camera store where they had a proper setup and analogue equipment. Few people care about lighting any more, as people are so used to working with phone filters.

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The Australian passport office suggests you use professionals or large chain stores with printing facilities, chemists, post offices and camera stores. There’s really nothing stopping you doing it yourself, as long as you work within the requirements.

If I’m around for the next one, I won’t be such a cheapskate. I’ll get proper lighting. I might employ a makeup artist. I’ll brush my hair.

But that may all be moot. By then, my passport might be a microchip embedded in my wrist.