Andy Warhol; "Holly Solomon", 1963-1964; Image Source

One of my resolutions this year is to take an international trip and with spring and summer coming up quickly it’s time to get our act in gear! We’ve gotten over the first hurdles of when and where to go (leaning toward early May; probably Croatia via a brief stopover in Southern France – woot!) Now, for the more terrifying hurdle: my passport photo. This is one of those post-marriage, name change boondoggles that I’ve been avoiding for nearly four years, but now there’s an imminent need to have my passport updated. It’s time to bite the bullet, send in the paperwork, and brave the photobooth. Be strong!

In my first passport picture, circa April 2000, I made the cardinal sin of pulling my hair back in a ponytail and the end result was terrible. Add florescent lighting and I looked sort of bald and moon-faced, but it got me back and forth from U.K., Ireland, Australia, and Fiji. So, success I guess? It expired just in time to need renewing the month before we were married.

Mike and I were invited to a wedding in Bermuda literally 2 weeks after our own, so delaying until all the certificates and licenses were filed wasn’t an option. A hasty photo in CVS where I look unaccountably sweaty (eww.) represented me through customs and has been lurking in the ‘Travel Documents’ folder of our filing cabinet ever since. Yikes. That’s 14 years of international-incident level hideousness, people!

This time I’m determined not to look sickly green as if I’ve been on an all-night bender, so I’ve been searching out resources and advice. Here’s my plan of attack:

1. Enlist Mike to take a picture for me and use epassportphoto.com to size it

2. Follow the tips from these articles: Beautylish, Flare, Anywhere-Anywhere, which hit some similar points. In a nutshell: hair down, shoot in natural light, define features with make-up, smile with the eyes (aka: smize.)

3. Do-overs. Lots and lots of do overs.

I’m determined. This time I will slide that little blue book across the podium with confidence! Do you have any passport photo advice? Travel stories? Ideas for things to do in Croatia? I’d love to hear it!