While we recently managed to take some photos for the website, we said it was also about time to go for the missing passport photos we will need for specific visas around the world. So we had a look on all countries we are going to visit and wrote down the specific passport sizes:
- India (51 x 51 mm
- USA (50 x 50 mm)
- China (48 x 33 mm)
- Nepal (40 x 30 mm)
Knowing what we need (even if some of the photos will just be “backup”), we decided to first go to this little photo studio next to the main train station in Salzburg. As we pass by it nearly every day and it has a big sign that says: “4 x Passport photos available here for only 10€” – we decided it’s worth a try. We got in, quickly explained what we need and voilà, 10 minutes later we had 4 passport photos for only 10€ per person. The only problem…they were only in standard (EU) size (and some other countries we won’t visit). So the super friendly guy who is working there told us that we should give it another try at the bigger photo studio just around the corner.
We walked there (now knowing a little bit more about the price range of such photos), went in and explained again that we were looking for some specific passport photo sizes. The only difference…this time we already had a weird gut feeling immediately as we entered this so called “studio”. Not only was everything looking super old and messy, but also the photographer was pretty rude to his assistant all the time. So Melanie and I looked to each other and instantly knew that we both just wanted to quickly finish what we started here. We both sat down, took our photos and as we afterwards (YES, we forgot to ask beforehand) asked about the price, the photographer took his calculator and started to murmur into his beard: “For all photos and the different sizes it will cost you in sum 150€ and you can pick up the photos in about a week.”
As Melanie and I were both shocked and confused at the same time, we just payed and didn’t want to run into any further price discussions with him.
So today’s lesson: “Always ask for the price before you make use of someones service.”
Next time we might just only take our own photos and make use of one of the many passport photo generators online:
visafoto.com
www.persofoto.com/lexicon/passport-photo/size
Cheers,
Philipp
