Nice hack, now wondering if you can wear the 'Angelina Jolie' glasses frame[1] for your picture.
Funny story, when my passport was stolen in London I had to go to the US Embassy there to get a replacement, I brought a picture that I got in the tube station from a "passport photo machine". The embassy rejected it, requiring instead that I go to a specific photographer who was located about 2 blocks away. That guy charged me 20 pounds sterling for two black and white photos.
My wife kept that one after it had expired because in the photo I have a smoldering look of disgust :-)
I don't know if it's the same for US passport photos, but US visa photos need to be a larger square whereas most European photo requirements have a smaller portrait aspect ratio.
The photo is no different, it's just that there's prescribed size in imperial units for US visa photos. At one point I went to a photo shop to get US visa photos since I knew a photo booth wouldn't do the right thing, but they printed out Euro style photos by mistake, and I had to ask them to do US ones instead, so I got both sets of photos. Exactly the same zoom, exactly the same photo, just the Euro style was cropped more.
I wouldn't say it's really that new, assuming an even distribution of passports over time, close to 40% of active US passports probably fall under those rules.
That would still mean 60% of passport holders will be surprised by this change. I hadn't heard of it, and I'll need to renew my passport in a little over a year.
Funny story, when my passport was stolen in London I had to go to the US Embassy there to get a replacement, I brought a picture that I got in the tube station from a "passport photo machine". The embassy rejected it, requiring instead that I go to a specific photographer who was located about 2 blocks away. That guy charged me 20 pounds sterling for two black and white photos.
My wife kept that one after it had expired because in the photo I have a smoldering look of disgust :-)
[1] https://www.theverge.com/2016/11/3/13507542/facial-recogniti...