You may have heard that the University of Oregon’s card office is accepting selfies for new student ID cards. While that may now be the case, the UO is a bit more discriminative when it comes to your Duck ID than Facebook is when it comes to your profile photo.
So even though you got to take an infamous foot selfie with the PDX carpet before it was ripped up, it’s not gonna work.
The card office has a few requirements for a new ID photo:
• No funny faces
• No cropping off the top of your head
• No costumes, sunglasses or other headgear
• No out-of-focus photos
• No angled pictures
Violate any of the above rules and the card office will ask you to re-take and upload the new picture. Send in three unsuccessful attempts and you’ll have to do things the old-fashioned way.
Card office manager Tamarra White went over a few selfies to give us a better idea of what’s acceptable. Eight of the nine photos below would definitely be sent back:
“No funny expressions of gestures. This is your official ID photo. UOPD needs to be able to recognize you. Your professors have access to these photos as well. Make sure you’re not making duck faces for these photos.”
So that rules out the above photo.
“Busy background,” White said. “There’s other people in the photo.”
No extra points for reppin’ Duck gear and traveling to Levi’s Stadium for the Pac-12 championship game?
“She gets personal points, but that’s not going to work for her photo,” she said.
“I could actually crop that and flip it,” White said. “It’s more work, but this one could be okay.”
But as a general rule? Don’t angle your ID photos.
“This one is such a common problem,” White said. “Sometimes when people go for a flattering angle, they end up cutting off the top of their head.”
“You can’t have another person in your photos,” White said. “In this one, you also can’t see his eyes. You know what he’s doing right, though? At least he’s looking at the camera.”
“Nope. No funny faces,” White said. “And we need to be able to see your eyes.”
“Head cropped off at the top,” White said. “Face hidden by food. But at least this one is well lit.”
“No beer. Besides, you can’t have your face obstructed by anything. But at least here the background would work.”
White says that there hasn’t been much of a problem with students sending in photos of them with illegal substances (most Duck IDs are issued to people who are under 21.) But there was one student holding an “illegal object” in his photo. White declined to say just what that was.
Additionally, a proper Duck ID will include both sides of your face. No Ariana Grande-esque left-side-only photos.
“We need to be able to see your entire face,” White said.
So, something like this?
“Perfect,” White said.
Follow Eder Campuzano on Twitter: @edercampuzano.