Why does the US federal government apparently want photos on IDs to look like Bigfoot on a security camera? States used to have driver's licenses with nice, clear, high resolution color photos. With the push for RealID the driver's license photo is now blurry and black & white. Shit, passports. I got my passport renewed. And let me tell you, there's a world of aging that takes place between 46 and 56. It also didn't help that getting the picture taken was an impulse thing--"oh, there's Walgreen's and I don't have The Dog. I'll pop in and get my passport photo. On top of that I made the mistake of smiling for the photo. Usually any pictures of me are selfies and between getting in frame and holding the camera still and getting the shutter to trigger, I'm concentrating on too many things to have a candid smile and I have no idea how to do a fake smile without looking like a serial killer. But since someone else was taking the picture, I was able to smile. And that's the picture she sent me. The one were ever line on my face is wrinkled up. It was so bad that I considered going back to do another picture, but I bit the bullet and just sent if off.
Well I got my passport today. And it turns out I shouldn't have worried. Somehow, they managed to turn a clear, sharp, high resolution photo into something that looks like it was painted but Seurat. On the plus side, getting my driver's license out while I made this post made me realize my license expired a month ago. So now I have a new fun adventure to go on.