Passport Photo Service: An Unexpected Archive of Celebrity Portraits

The dreaded passport picture. We’ve all been there. You sit down, try not to blink, try not to look like a criminal or a ghost, and somehow the camera still catches you at your absolute worst. That’s the “real you” that ends up traveling the world. No filters. No second takes—just one shot and done. And yeah, even the biggest celebrities have to go through it.

Now picture this. A book filled with passport photos of people who spent their lives being photographed at their best. I’m talking about faces like Mick Jagger, Muhammad Ali, David Hockney, Stephen Fry, Angelina Jolie, and Little Richard. No stylists. No lighting crews. Just a chair, a camera, and ten minutes to get it right.

Since 1953, a small, no-nonsense spot called Passport Photo Service on Oxford Street in London quietly built one of the strangest celebrity archives you’ve ever heard of. Run by former boxer turned photographer Dave Sharkey, along with his wife Ann and later their son Philip, the place promised photos “Ready in 10 Minutes” before anyone else in the city: no fuss, no ego, just results.

The location didn’t hurt either. A short walk from the U.S. Embassy and right across from Selfridges, it became a magnet for people on the move. Some just happened to be global icons. And instead of hiding that fact, the studio leaned into it. Giant framed photos lined the walls. More were pinned along the stairwell. It must’ve felt like walking into a secret hall of fame disguised as a passport booth.

Now, for the first time, that archive steps out into the world with Passport Photo Service: An Unexpected Archive of Celebrity Portraits from Phaidon Press. Philip Sharkey has pulled together more than 300 previously unseen images spanning 1953 to 2019. Actors, musicians, writers, athletes. All of them caught in that same unforgiving format. He started working at his family’s Passport Photo Service when he was just sixteen, picking up the craft in a place most people rushed through but somehow never forgot, and he stayed with it right until the doors finally closed in 2019 after a remarkable 66-year run.

And the stories are half the fun accompanying the photos. You’ve got Sean Connery showing up at different times with entirely different moustaches, like he couldn’t commit to just one identity. David Hockney never ditched his signature round glasses, no matter the year. Muhammad Ali sat for his photo on the way to what became the legendary Rumble in the Jungle in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Then there are the moments you can’t script. When Bianca Jagger was told she might want to remove her oversized hat for official approval, she shot back, “They will for me.” That’s confidence you can’t teach.

The book also dips into the beautifully chaotic edges of fame. Nancy Spungen shows up wearing an “I’m a McLaren Puppet” badge. Poly Styrene appears mid–Hare Krishna phase, sorting out an Indian visa. And somewhere in there, Lemmy ends up side by side with his childhood hero, Little Richard. That alone is worth the price of admission.

As Stephen Fry puts it, getting your photo taken there felt like joining a very specific club. Not glamorous. Not polished. But somehow special.

And that’s really the charm of it. This isn’t about perfection. It’s about catching legends in the one place where they couldn’t control the narrative. Slightly awkward. Totally human. Frozen in time in a way no glossy magazine shoot could ever replicate.

It’s a time capsule of London, of celebrity culture before everything went digital, and of a tiny studio that accidentally became part of pop culture history.