A passport photo of a newborn has to satisfy a specification designed around a cooperative adult sitting still against a backdrop. Authorities know this, and relax several rules for young children. The ones they do not relax are the difficult ones.
What relaxes
- Expression. A neutral face is not required for infants. An open mouth is generally accepted.
- Eyes. Most authorities accept closed eyes for babies under one. Some extend that further.
- Gaze. Small children are not required to look directly at the camera. The UK, for instance, relaxes this under six.
- Head position. A degree of tilt is usually tolerated where it would not be for an adult.
What does not
- Nobody else in the frame. No supporting hands, no arm, no shoulder, no reflection of a parent. This is the rule that makes the whole thing difficult.
- Plain, uniform background. Same as an adult.
- No toys, no dummies, no blankets in shot.
- Head size and position in the frame. Measured the same way, against the same bands.
- Sharpness. A moving baby in dim light produces motion blur, which is refused.
The technique that works
The standard approach for a baby who cannot sit up:
- Lay the child on a plain white or light sheet on the floor or a bed. A smooth cotton sheet with no pattern and no visible creases.
- Photograph from directly above, with the camera parallel to the sheet so the face is not foreshortened.
- Use daylight from a window, not overhead light - overhead casts shadow into the eye sockets, and flash is both harsh and startling.
- Keep your own shadow out of frame. Stand so the window light comes past you rather than being blocked by you.
- Take many frames. Thirty is not excessive. You are waiting for one where the head is straight and nothing is blurred.
For a child who can sit but not pose, a car seat or high chair covered with a plain sheet works, photographed at the child's eye level from about a metre and a half. Cover the whole chair - a visible strap or buckle is an object in frame.
Getting attention without a toy in shot
Someone standing directly behind the camera, at the lens, making a noise. Not holding anything up - a hand or a rattle that drifts into frame invalidates the photo, and in a wide phone frame that happens more easily than you would think.
Older children
From around six, most authorities apply adult rules: neutral expression, eyes open, looking at the camera, mouth closed. The practical difference is patience rather than technique.
One rule worth knowing: children's passports are issued for short validity periods precisely because faces change fast, so a photo that is a few months old may already fail the appearance test for a toddler.
Checking before you submit
Head size and position are measurable, and they are where infant photos fail even when everything else is right - a baby photographed from above is often framed much too tightly or much too loosely.
IDShot measures the crop the same way for a child as for an adult, and lets you take dozens of frames and pick the one that lands - which is the actual workflow for photographing a baby.
Requirements are changed by the authorities that publish them, and the official page is the only source that settles an argument. Each preset in IDShot links to that page, so you can confirm the current wording before you submit.