Passport Photos Smiling Verboten

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Why is it illegal to smile in passport photos? Tech falcon, 
Marques Keith Brownlee @mkbhd, with falcon physicist Neil deGrasse Tyson.

I’m running for mayor under the Smile I.D. Party. I think we’ll get a decent vote because there are many silent objectors to the requirement that we should not smile when we take photos for the driver’s licence, passport, provincial identification card and health card.

I understand the requirement that we should remove hats and baseball caps because they partly hide the face.  But I’m clueless as to why we should not smile.  Why is it a crime?  It is a crime because I once sneaked in a smile, and the road transport photographer shook her head and said we should try again.  Was she trained in smiled detection?

Politicians that make these laws have never explained why smiles are bad for I.D. photos.  Do they distort the face?  Do I look like somebody else when I’m smiling? 

These questions need answers because the current ugly I.D. photos give a wrong impression.  We don’t go around life looking like we are constipated or standing on pieces of broken bottles, like Hema Malini in Sholay, the classic Bollywood film.

We smile when a toddler waves at us, when we get a money alert, when we are on T.V. for the first time, when the sun shines, when the waiter brings a dressed to kill salmon dinner or when we see parents after a long time.  Smiling is part of living, part of us and we don’t even smile enough because of debt and love which can be fickle like the weather.

Therefore, in my campaign for smiling identification photos, I will promise to urge the government to delete the ban on smiling.  No more sour photos.  Sweet is the way to go.

Politicians always smile when they are running for office, kissing babies and shaking hands, then turn around and make laws that we should not smile in these I.D. cards we carry.  They are so scary, we don’t even show them to lovers.

“Darling, this is a great driver’s licence photo of you.  Let’s post it online.”

They are not a true representation of who we are and lead to the ridiculous question from customs officers at the airport or border gates.

“Is this you?”

Nonqaba waka Msimang

Executive Blogger

 

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