Amelia's passport photo shoots

For our family to leave Japan as planned we need Amelia's passport before January 15th. This can take up to 6 weeks to get it back. She was born on the 25th of November (right before Thanksgiving weekend, which means people were not working the day after we brought her home from the hospital.) We took her to the infamous "photo booth" on base on Friday afternoon. She was exactly 3 days old but we NEEDED to get her picture taken so we had to do it. As you may know passport photos have specific requirement they need to meet. Nothing other than the baby's face can be seen (no mother's face or arms or fingers). The poor babe's eyes must be OPEN (what 3 day old opens her eyes on command?) and all this must be accomplished in an automated photo booth that allows 1 retake and cost 600 yen (a little more than $6).
Our attempt on Friday resulted in 1,200 yen wasted, one very upset baby, an upset little girl (Lola) and a very frustrated father, and two pictures of Amelia with her eyes closed.
What you don't see in the following pictures are Sam's cold hands on Amelia's toes, the wet paper towel we used to get her to wake up. The sweaty brow of her postpartum mother who should be at home resting and hydrating. Lola and the iphone display model that she could not keep her hands off. You don't hear the calm voice of the automated photo booth assistant telling you when to relax and wait for the next picture to be taken...if only her voice could have been more soothing and relaxing, maybe Amelia would have fallen for it.
(attempt #1)

(attempt #2)

On Sunday afternoon we ate lunch and headed back to the infamous photo booth yet once again to attempt to capture the elusive passport photo. This time Amelia was hungry so she was of course going to be awake with her eyes open. What we didn't count on is that she would be hungry that anything other than eating would cause her to scream her eyes out causing them not to be there when her picture was taken. We tried this three times costing us another 1,800 yen. We ran out of yen and out of patience. Sam pointed out the irony of this unfortunate situation...it was two days of torture that was unproductive and we actually had to pay good money for it. After our two days of photo attempts we decided to call it quits with the photo booth. There had to be a better way. I had happened to strike up a conversation with a woman in the ladies room while I was consoling Amelia and giving her the much delayed meal that she had been screaming for instead of posing nicely for her photo. This woman told me there was a place out in town she had gone to when she was needing a visa picture. That settled it, we were going to find this place.
(attempt #3 - day 2)

(attempt #4 - day 2)

(attempt #5 - day 2)

Monday morning after getting the girls ready and Sam and myself out the door, we drove around the area of Sasebo we were told we could find this photo shop. After driving in circles trying to read Japanese signs, ha ha, I made the decision that we would park the car, walk to Starbucks and ask our friend Naomi, who works there, where in the world this place could be. As we were walking towards Starbucks Naomi rode up behind us on her bike. It was an answer to many many prayers. She had happened to come to work an hour early and so she had plenty of time to take us to the photo shop and translate our needs to them. It was a miracle. (I won't tell you that this photo shop was one that I've been walking past for 3 years but didn't know they did more than take fancy Japanese style pictures of kids in kimonos and yukatas. So we paid our 3,100 yen and walked up three flights of stairs to the studio where there were 4 people waiting to help us take the perfect passport picture of our 6 day old baby. There was nice relaxing music playing and soft lighting. It was completely different from the "infamous photobooth" and we would have gladly paid more for such an experience. One woman held Amelia up on a little seat with a staight back and kept her hands nicely concealed under Amelia's bib. Another woman rubbed her tummy while yet another woman clapped her hands together and squeezed a little rubber mickey mouse toy that squeaked. While all this was happening the photographer was snapping pictures of our calm awake and alert Amelia. It was the funniest thing, she would bob her head and then open her eyes for the picture and follow it up with a little hiccup. Not one tear was shed, not one scream was issued, and her coloring didn't change one shade. She was a happy camper and that made her mommy and daddy so happy we were in the background doing the happy dance. and We would have paid twice that much for such an experience if we'd never have to put her in that torture chamber of a photo booth again.

The final and successful attempt...what an angel.