Passport photo

Did you know that a baby born to two Singaporean parents overseas does not get Singapore citizenship automatically? The parents have to do tons of paperwork to request Singapore nationality for the baby! One of the things required in the application form is a "proper" passport photo, i.e. colour, taken with the baby's eyes open, and against a white background.

It was certianly an uphill challenge for Baby Bel's parents to get such a photo of her, given that she is only 10 days old, and hence, spends most of her time sleeping (i.e. eyes closed). And even when she's awake, she doesn't really take the trouble to look at the camera!

The whole photo-taking session lasted about 2 hours, and Baby Bel's dad must have taken about 30 photos altogether. And as the lighting in the house was not bright enough, aluminium foil and a torchlight was used... think supermodel photo shoot = ) (Some examples attached).

>"Hey, I'm sleeping, please give me some peace & quiet?"

>"Okay, okay, I will try to wake up, but give me some time! What did you want me to do?"

>"Oh, let me try to make a funny face for my passport. Will this work?"

Her parents were so happy when they managed to get a shot with her looking at the camera! But then, another 30mins of work was necessary to edit the photo digitally to create the white background.

Voila, the final result - Isabelle's first passport photo!

Note: the white background you see was done through the pain-staking efforts of using a touchpad to colour in bit-by-bit, the area of the photo surrounding her head. You can see the quality of the work, as Baby Bel's hair has not been erased from the photo! :-)