Obtaining a visa from any foreign government can be a complicated process depending on governmental regulations and rules. When applying for a visa, we must prepare a qualified visa photo. Please don’t risk the success of your application by submitting a photograph that does not meet the visa photo requirements.
Does that mean you have to take the photo in a professional studio? You may want to know whether you could take the visa photo by yourself. The answer is yes. You could take the photo at home instead of going to a photograph studio, which can help save about 15 dollars. However, you have to make sure the camera you will use to take your photo is of high quality, so the photo does not come out blurry and your picture has to meet the specific requirements given by the governments. In order to help you make a perfect visa photo at home, here we list some requirements you need to pay attention to.
Requirements on visa photo
A. General requirements
Validity requirement: The visa photo has a validity requirement. It must be taken within six months (the validity requirement for the visa photo varies among different countries).
Quality requirement: The whole picture is required to be clear with no blur or flare. Your face should be visible without any obstructions whether physical or digital. And the photo must be in color.
Photo authenticity: As one kind of official document, visa photo has to be real and can reflect your current look. Therefore, your photo can’t be revised by any computer software.
B. Photo size and background
Different countries have diverse requirements on the visa photo size. For example, US and India visa requires that the photo dimensions should be 2 x 2 inches (51mm x 51mm); for a Schengen visa, the visa photo dimensions are 1.3 x 1.5 inches (35mm x 40mm). When you try to take the photo at home, you must choose a correct dimension. Apart from that, the photo background should be white. If you take it at home, you need to take it against a white or other pale-colored background.
C. Pose and gesture
When taking a visa photo, you must face the camera directly and look horizontally at the lens. You need to sit straightly and shouldn’t tilt or look up or down. Your head should be at the center of the frame.
D. Facial expression
As the photo is used for visa, so a neutral facial expression is recommended. You should not act too emotively. You’d better not smile, laugh, frown your brows, squint or wink. Moreover, your eyes should be open with no obstruction on them. Red eyes in the picture are not permitted.
E. Dress code
a. Clothes Color: As mentioned above, the background of the visa photo is white. So light colored clothes are not good choices. You should choose darker colored attire.
b. Clothes style: You can’t wear uniforms or costumes. Camouflage and bizarre clothes are forbidden. An attire with a large open collar should be avoided because the picture only contains the upper body, if you wear clothes with large open collar, you may be looked naked, which will lead to your application rejected.Turtleneck also shouldn’t be considered because your neck can’t be hidden in passport photo.
c. Head coverings:Some types of hats are also not allowed when taking a visa photo which will make your face invisible such as berets, fedoras and caps. But there are some exceptions like turban and hijab. If you are not allowed to expose your head to the public due to the religious belief or medical reasons, then you can cover your head with turban and hijab while keeping face visible. In both cases mentioned above, written documentation is needed to justify that you are allowed to wear head coverings.
d. Glasses: Glasses or contact lenses are not accepted in the visa photo. Before you take the picture, you should take them off. If you have the medical proof to justify that you have to wear glasses, then you don’t need to do so. Even though, your eyes must be visible. There should be no shadows or reflection from the eyeglasses that obscure the eyes. And the lens should not be colored and the frame of the glasses can’t be too thick to cover your face.
e. Accessories: Too bright and shiny jewelry is forbidden which will influence your photo quality due to the reflection and some large accessories may hide your face. Small and simple earrings are preferred.
f. Electronic device: Electronic device such as earphones or headset are not permitted. However, hearing aids are acceptable.
How to take a perfect visa photo?
If you want to take a perfect visa photo, you need to prepare a camera of high quality or a smart phone which has an excellent photographic function. The distance between the face and the camera should be about 40 cm. Ideally the photo should be taken by the other person. You should choose a plain background. And you are advised to expose to the light so that your face can be visible.
Where to make a visa photo?
You can take a visa photo at local post office, drugstores and pharmacies such as CVS, Walgreen, Walmart, or any photo booths. Their employees are familiar with official requirements of specific visa document. You’ll get a complaint visa photo within 10 minutes. Keep in mind that you should visit them during opening hours.
Alternatively, you can make a visa photo with online photo tools. You can use it to change the background color and adjust the photo size. You just need to upload a picture and then you will get a standard visa photo in less than 15 seconds with this tool. One of the representative tools is called AiPassportPhotos, with which you will save more time and money on visa photo. It can help to check your photo intelligently so as to meet the above mentioned requirements.
Review and summary
If you want to save the money and time spent on visa photo shooting, you can choose to take the visa photo at home on the basis of meeting the visa photo requirements. As we discussed above, making a visa photo is never a piece of cake. At first, you need to ensure your picture is taken by a camera of high quality which is essential. The visa picture should be of high-resolution. Your face and upper body should be at the center of the picture and be visible with no shadows or blur. You need to take the photo against the white wall. In addition to those, you have to pay attention to what you wear, your facial expression and pose or gesture. If you want to get a passport photo more efficiently, undoubtedly online photo tools are wonderful choices. We anticipate that with the above mentioned tips you could take a perfect visa photo at home and your application will be a success.
Erin Lo