A savvy mum has shared how she managed to save herself £45 on passport photos by not using the "expensive" photo booths and instead utilising her old fridge.
Louise Warren was at her wit's end when the government's passport website repeatedly rejected pictures of her youngest daughter, six-year-old Lyza Beau Ellis, because the lighting and shadows in her home weren't acceptable.
And after refusing to spend £15 a time getting photos taken at one of the passport photo booths commonly seen around supermarkets and shopping centres, Louise was suddenly struck by the genius idea to make sure of her old white fridge that was on the street outside her home ready to be collected.
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The mum rushed her daughter outside and had her kneel on the pavement in front of the fridge, where she then snapped a photo against the perfectly white background.
The government website had already rejected 10 photos of the schoolgirl, but thankfully, the photo taken in front of the fridge was accepted immediately.
Louise was rushing to renew Lyza Beau's passport - as well as the passports of her other children, eight-year-old Lola Blu and 18-year-old Lilybelle - ahead of the family's summer holiday to Egypt, but wanted to dodge the collective £45 it would cost to have each of them sit in a photo booth.
The mum-of-three, from Islington, Central London, said: "It's a really clever mum hack. Doing it myself saved the kids being dragged to a photo booth and saved me £45. It was definitely worth it.
"When we tried inside we were getting told there were shadows on Lyza Beau's face and the background was too dark. I tried about 10 times inside but the system kept rejecting it.
"I thought that we needed natural daylight, but I couldn't think of anything for them to stand in front of, so I pulled our old fridge forward on the front.
"Lyza Beau was saying 'mum, please, no more photos', but I just told her to sit on the floor. She was absolutely p***ed off and fed up by that time. She asked if she had to say cheese, but I just told her to put her hair behind her ears and not move. It got approved straight away.
"I didn't even think about going to the photo booth, I wanted to find a way to save time. I could put photo booths out of business with this. It's expensive anyway.
"Sometimes it's just about the initiative, you don't have to pay £15 for a photo. If you need a white background, find one. It's as simple as that."
Louise, who manages the Hornsey Arms pub, Haringey, shared the photo of her daughter frowning as she sits in front of the fridge on Facebook, where people rushed to praise her for the "genius" hack.
One said: "F***ing genius. Shame that ours is black."
As another added: "We should have done this."
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