Alice Wyllie: 'We don't look like supermodels in our passport photos as we don't in real life'

MY 26th birthday is fast approaching, which means two things: I now no longer tick the 16-25 box when filling out forms, and I need to apply for a new passport, having being issued with my first at the tender age of 16.

In the grand tradition of passport photographs, I've always hated mine, but I've put this down to the fact that I was an awkward teenager when it was taken, all schoolgirl hair and bad fashion choices.

Still, I was determined my new passport photo would not induce the customary customs cringe. I turned, as I so often do, to Google for advice on how to get a good shot. And so I found myself sitting in the photo booth of my local post office, with static from the little blue curtain clinging to my shoulder as I tilted my chin down and looked through the lens "as if gazing into some magical far-off land".

The booth allowed me to review my shot and retake it as often as I liked, asking me each time, in a loud robotic voice, if I was happy with my picture.

By the fourth retake, the queue outside was beginning to snigger at my vanity, so I settled for the pale and uninteresting image staring back at me.

Oh well, I'll have another go when I'm 36. I wasn't that bothered really, but it did get me thinking about this odd vanity so many people have about their passport photos. We need only ever show our passports to strangers, and most of us will only have to produce them a few times a year.

It is possible that we tend to look unnaturally bad in them because they are so brightly lit, so candid and unsmiling. Then again, the purpose of such an image is to present a shot that accurately portrays our appearance. Could it be that we hate our passport photos because they are a stark reminder of exactly what we look like? We can't be caught off guard at a good moment. We can't smile or hide coyly behind our hair. And we can't try to show our good sides. This is it, people; this is what you look like, and it ain't pretty.

After all, has a friend ever told you they hate their passport photo, revealed it to you and left you thinking: "What's the problem; that's just the way you look?" Do we have such inflated opinions of our own appearances that we manage to convince ourselves that an image showing our true colours is just a "bad shot"? Perhaps it's just too much to bear that our passport photos are not unflattering pictures of us, but simply painfully accurate ones. Most of us don't look like supermodels in our passport photos because most of us don't look like supermodels in real life.

As I go to post off my form, I ask the clerk if my image meets the Passport Office's rigorous standards.

"Your hair's quite big," he tells me, as if I'd asked him to critique my appearance, before adding, "Are you doing something with your eyes?"

I stopped myself from snapping back that I was gazing into some magical far-off land, thank you very much. "When do you travel?" he asked me. When I replied not for another seven weeks, he shoved them into the envelope. "You've got plenty of time; they might ask you to have another go, but let's wait and see." I can't deny that I'm secretly hoping they do.