PASSPORT PHOTO WOES
- 5/4/2012 <--Prev : Next-->
Well thats that !!
I am saddled with my new passport photo for another ten years !! EEEEK !!
My drivers license is bad enough, issued at age 16, (under the auspices of the Southern Rhodesian Government) I look like an absolute nightmare. And I have looked like that for nearly forty years.
How many times have my friends smirked smugly on viewing my drivers license !! There I am - Dusty Springfield beehive, Dionne Warwick fringe cut straight across, heavy Margot Hemingway eyebrows and blush ........ FRECKLES !!
How awful can a girls driver's license photo be for forty years. It does get me away with murder at road blocks however. The police officer who demands that I produce my license always does a double take !!
Oh but you are so OLD !! They say in horror, comparing the young Dusty Springfield with that stern lady who has driven for a thousand years in probably the most stressful of all countries.
"And what is this place?" they all ask, fresh from Morris Depot police training school.... " Southern Rhodesia" ?? Where is that place ??
'Issued in 1965 young man" I say sternly, twenty years before you were even born !! And look not a single endorsement !! ( They have a healthy respect for ancient people fortunately and generally let me go with bemused and baffled looks !!)
Oh and by the way, the driver's license states "Fee paid two pounds!!"
One does not have to produce one's drivers license too often fortunately, but a passport is open and subject to much abuse and ridicule a lot more often !!
Knowing it was a photo call, I applied my TV style pancake make up, adding a spot of pollyfiller here and there. A touch of blusher undoubtedly looked quite becoming and there is still thankfully, nothing that needs to be done to those Margot Hemingway eyebrows. I thought the pearl earrings made a nice touch, takes the emphasis away from the neckline they tell me !!
A fetching blue and white check open neck blouse in seersucker to give depth to the photo, the lipstick that HeeHoo hates, but it has potential in a photo, a couple of artful curls here and there to cover a multitude of sins, and off we went.
HeeHoo does not require makeup and extra adornment, somehow men seem to age so much more gracefully than women. So he went as he always does, dressed like a Zimbabwean farmer !! Khaki open neck shirt and distinguished grey hair is all the accoutrement that he needs.
The photographer was not at all impressed with my attire, clucking his tongue admonishingly, he demanded I go home and change my top, as it would not work with his white background.!!
HeeHoo, perpetually in a hurry to get back to work, refused point blank and manfully took off his khaki shirt and handed it to me !!
Now Darhl, my " colour-me-beautiful" consultant Heather Wagstaff would have had an absolute hissy fit !! Khaki is not for me !!!! That withering husbandly gaze however had me dressing in khaki in a flash.
I looked like I was dressed in an Iversens tent, the neck was fifteen sizes too big for me and the pockets were down by my ankles !!
I wondered what the passport people would say at husband and wife both dressed like the Broederbond !
Off with the earrings chirped the photographer cheerfully !! Off with the necklace too ......... oh and the ears must show, push your hair behind your ears.
By now I am looking like a Hobbit and as I stared at the photog balefully, he captured that exact moment on film !!
Will they ever allow me into any country with that passport photo I wondered disparagingly , thinking evil thoughts about immigration officials and photographers worldwide.
