The American band Talking Heads stated in the artwork of their hit Stop Making Sense album that “passport pictures are what people really look like”. They are if they’re correctly taken, that is.

Poorly taken or presented passport-style photographs could be the difference between success and failure for your visa application, no matter how good the rest of your documentation may be.

The reason for this is simple: security. Without good-quality, recent photographs, a state cannot have certainty that anyone arriving at a port of entry is who they say they are. It makes sense that you should be easily visually identifiable.

This is why there are strict guidelines for how an identification photograph should look. When applying for a Schengen visa, your application photographs must fulfil several specific requirements:

• Dimensions: the photograph size should be 35mm x 45mm (1.37” x 1.77”)
• Hi-res: the print resolution of the photograph must be a minimum of 600dpi
• Recent: the image must have been taken in the past six months
• Fill the frame: your face must take up between 70% to 80% of the image
• Head on: the photograph must be a full frontal view of your face, and not taken from an angle
• Accurate: the photograph must be high quality, and represent how you look in real life
• Background colour: the photograph’s background should be light grey
• In focus: the image must be sharply in focus, clear and properly contrasted
• No distractions: your image may not have red eyes, reflections visible in the photograph or shadows across your face
• Even lighting: the image must not be too dark or too bright
• Quality paper: your image must be printed on high-quality paper. It can be either glossy or matte paper, however

Remember that visa applications usually require at least two photographs, so make sure that your photographer provides you with a set. It’s never a bad idea to have a few spare photographs anyway.

While Talking Heads may have been poking fun at how we particularly seem to cringe at our own mugshots, the band touched on a very important point (and one especially significant to customs and immigration officials): that you and your identification photograph should correlate.

But take comfort in the fact that if you hate your photograph, you’re not alone: very few people actually do like theirs. And your picture will only end up on social media if you put it there yourself.