What do you mean I’m not supposed to smile, mummy!
How baby’s first passport photo shoot became a 5-hour marathon
EVEN for an adult with the strength to hold their own head up, it is one of the more arduous pre-holiday tasks.
So, at passport renewal time – and that dreaded trip to the photo booth – spare a thought for little Lucas Thursby and his parents.
The cute six-week- old’s mother and father decided to treat him to his first holiday abroad this summer, unwittingly sparking a five- hour ordeal to take a perfect passport photograph of the tiny tot.
What looks like a gallery of his cutest poses is actually a catalogue of failed snaps that just didn’t make the grade.
Lucas’s mother, Emma Mitchell, said: ‘The guidelines demand that he hold his head up straight and look into the camera. My hands couldn’t be in it at all. I was holding him at the waist and I was scared that his neck was getting sore. I think the rules are ridiculous. They are too constraining.
‘The passport lasts five years. How do you expect strangers to identify babies from photos that in a couple of years they won’t look anything like?
‘The Passport Office has you totally over the barrel. I feel absolutely disheartened by it all. I am trying to plan something that is meant to be fun but this has put a bit of a damper on things.’
Little Lucas is due to fly out with Miss Mitchell and his f ather Graeme Thursby to Spain’s Costa del Sol in August.
But Miss Mitchell, 29, from Inchinnan, Renfrewshire, was beginning to wish she had picked a holiday in Scotland instead during the mammoth passport photo session.
Strict rules mean that the subject has to be looking directly at the camera with a straight face, both ears visible and no one else in the photo frame.
Luckily the photographer is a family friend who gave his time for free. Miss Mitchell, a company administrator, said Lucas remained calm throughout but she admitted: ‘I was stressed and I was getting upset.
‘It was so difficult but I’m not the first and I certainly won’t be the last parent to struggle with this.
‘I just hope that his passport comes on time.’
HM Passport Office declined to comment on the story. Its bosses have recently been criticised over a backlog in applications, so the family are praying Lucas’s perfect photo was taken in time.