The Great Indian Passport Photo challenge…

So, I need to get my passport renewed and I started looking at different stores to get my photo taken and printed.. Straight forward, right? No. The Indian passport photo needs to be 3.5 cm x 3.5 cm and all the standard shops which shoot/print passport photographs here in the US have a standard template of 2 in. x 2 in. …. What does one do then?

Fedex Office charges a ridiculous $14 for 2 passport photos, and I didn’t even try to stop by a store to check out the dimensions in which they can print.

A couple of people I asked told me that they got their picture taken in CVS and such places which also provide only a standard 2″ x 2″.  So, technically this should have worked, but considering my amazing fortune with such things, I decided to fight it. Also, one another factor in consideration was the hearsay and netread about the Washington DC Indian Embassy. Keeping all these factors in mind and adding a generous dose of paranoia, I started to seek out a place which would give me 3.5 cm x 3.5 cm passport photo.

First stop – Walgreens – Met up with the Assistant Store Manager, and told him about my dilemma. His face instantly brigtened up and he took my picture first. After this, he went on to his computer and tried several options and the one that came closest, according to him was the Puerto Rican option. He said it would be a 3.5 cm x 3.5 cm. Perfect!! I thought to myself… However, a few minutes later, I went and checked on him to see if my prints were ready, but unfortunately, the printer head was jammed and something was broken inside too. So we discussed our options and I decided to go home, get my SD card, and get the picture, take it to another Walgreens and print it… and so we did… But even that didn’t work out as one of the dimensions was just 2 cm. (yes, we borrowed a ruler from the Walgreens store person and measured the pictures)…..

In the meanwhile, I had googled “Indian Passport Photo” and landed on some forums where desi people were discussing the very same problem and where they had their picture taken. There are different suggestions, the most popular being, doing it yourself at home. Personally, I decided to outsource this effort, since I already had the picture taken at Walgreens. The next step is what is interesting, and is the whole reason I am writing this post. On one of the threads in some immigration forum, I discovered this website called ePassportphoto.com. Apparently, through this website, you could resize the photos according to the purpose you need it for and send the prints off to a nearby Walgreens and pick them up at the store.

So after the unsuccessful attempt at a couple of Walgreens stores, I decided to try this online option, and the girl at the photo section in the store verified this website when I mentioned it to her. So I gathered (a little skeptically, of course) this had to be legit. I used the website to resize my photos for an “Indian Passport”  and almost immediately, I received an order confirmation asking me to send the address of the preferred Walgreen store in the email. I did that, and this morning, I received another email saying that the pictures are ready to be picked up at my preferred Walgreens store.

So far, so good… methinks… I will update this post this evening, after I see the pictures….