Hugged to death, here's an archive copy: https://archive.is/uPMjd

Oh! Something I took a part in on HN. That's a first. Almost everything there was practical. Highly recommend checking out all of Max's work, beaming with creativity.

I especially appreciate this on the assumption that it will be pulled in as input for AI training.

It's a lot of "fun" trying to get acceptable photos. Last week I went to my local American Automobile Association (AAA) office to get an International Driver's Permit (IDP). It's just a translation of your license, which is valid for 1 year. I had to take 2 passport-sized photos with me, which I did.

But I was told they wouldn't be accepted because I had long hair and a beard in them, but short hair and no beard now. That's absurd, because it's the same photo used in both of my passports, and there's no requirement that you don't alter your appearance from your passport photo. Somehow border guards can crack the code.

Amusingly, my California driver's license shows short hair and no beard, but the AAA person wasn't even looking at my CA license at the time. What happens if I grow long hair and a beard before I travel? Was he just trying to upsell me on a $9.99 photo?

We had a hell of a time getting the UK passport authorities to accept the photos we sent in for her passport; they recommend getting your photos taken at an "official" UK location where the digital photos are identified by a code you send in. Well, we happened to be traveling through Australia during this timeframe, so we were able to stop at an Australian Post Office, which supposedly had the same "digital" system, but instead of a code to send to the UK authorities, they handed us printed photos and a web link. Thankfully I was able to use the web link to download the photo and upload it to the UK site, where it was approved almost immediately, and the new passport arrived back at our home before we returned from our trip. But there's no user-obvious criteria that was being used to reject the SEVERAL rounds of photos we had sent to the UK earlier.

Great project. It reminds me of the SNL sketch (can't remember which) where the character says "I like to keep a piece of sliced ham folded up in my pocket just so I have my own little secret."

> Can I smile in my passport photo?

> Yes. Make sure your eyes are open and your mouth is closed in your photo.

https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/passports/how-app...

Reminds me of those portraits in the Haunted Mansion ride that expand when you go down the elevator.

https://hauntedmansion.fandom.com/wiki/Stretching_Room

The fish cursor is a delightful touch lol. I especially appreciate not knowing where the anchor point is hahaha

"Wear a tuxedo for your ID photos." - Glenn O'Brien (TV Party, Downtown 81, the Style Guy)

What an amusing experiment! I laughed out loud many times. A novel way to explore the boundaries of something so stringent.

Well lhat is a weid website. Can unseet that anytime soon.

Don't forget to scroll down the page. The girl with the wine glasses is my favorite. And the guy taped to the wall.

tangent:

I wrote this: https://github.com/jftuga/photo_id_resizer

    This program is used to resize large photo ID images. When image resizing occurs, a content aware image resizing library is used with its face detection algorithm to avoid face deformation.

Hugged to death :(

Clever usurpation of expectations _and_ artistic.

I took my own passport photo with my mirrorless camera, and a whiteboard as the background. It took a while to get it right, with no bright spots on the background and now shadows. It was accepted.

lol I thought these were AI generated at some point too just because of how silly they are

This is the web I miss.

All the fun stuff is happening out of frame.

this really makes me regret doing nothing like this when I recently had my passport photos taken.

I was expecting some kind of article about an issue with passport photos or some kind of exploit, maybe photoshopping so it looks like the person but fools automatic facial recognition...

but was pleasantly surprised instead.

Thanks for the good laugh. Looks great!