Indonesia loves red tape; it embraces every opportunity to issue another piece of paper that must be stamped or signed by someone else, but Indonesia correspondent Adam Harvey discovered a place that makes Indonesian bureaucracy appear benign.

I've stopped being surprised by Indonesia's quest to turn simple tasks into complicated ones.

It now seems quite normal to stand at a sales desk while someone tallies up my items on a cash register, and passes the invoice to another worker who writes it all out again by hand, before directing me to another desk to hand over the cash and get a receipt so I can go back to the first desk to collect my three-pack of underpants.

It's not just shops. At my local pool I hand my 50,000 rupiah to a man in a glass booth. He gives me a ticket, which I then must give to his colleague, who's sitting at a card table right beside us. It would seem less silly if I wasn't usually the pool's only swimmer.

Official paperwork is even worse. Getting a visa, work permit or drivers licence involves a wheelbarrow's worth of paperwork and numerous trips to far-flung parts of Jakarta.

So I anticipated a lot of work getting a visa for my newborn daughter. I just didn't realise where the problem would come from.

We had gone home to take advantage of Australia's medical care, but that meant we couldn't return to Jakarta until her visa was issued. My application for Isla's birth certificate left the hospital before she did.

The certificate arrived in the mail a week later, and that meant we could start applying for a passport.

Rigid guidelines for adult passport photos apply for newborns, too

Getting a baby to stay still and look at the camera can be difficult. ( Supplied: Adam Harvey )

White background, both eyes open, and no-one else in the shot. So you can't hold the baby.

Newborns sleep a lot. And when they're not sleeping, they're crying, with their eyes clamped tightly shut. So there's a window each day of about ten seconds.

Each time her eyes even looked like opening we'd stop everything. We'd grab the white sheet and lay her down. I'd grab the camera and hover over her as my wife Eliza manipulated her head so she faced straight up, and then she'd quickly pull away her hand.

Each time we'd do this we'd have about a second before the baby's head slumped to one side.

"It's not straight," I'd tell my wife.

"Turn her head this way. No, I can see your hand. Move her head to the right. No, your right. That's it… got it… no, her eyes are shut."

We spent two days doing this. We're still married, although in a weaker moment I did ask if we could splash the baby with water to see if that would open her eyes.

Getting the shot nearly broke me — but finally, eyes open — check. White background — check. Facing the camera — check.

I went to Officeworks to print them out. The teenager behind the counter opened the file: "I think this will be rejected, there's a shadow on her face."

"But I used a flash! I was four inches from her face. I nearly blinded her," I tell him.

"Sorry, but this software is from the passport office and it's rejecting it."

"Can you print them out anyway?"

"No, it won't let me."

Round two, the problem with the chin shadow

I went home to sulk while Eliza took the baby to a proper photo shop.

They had a kind of baby cradle which would hold her still in front of the camera and flash while the photo was taken. It took two hours. At one point our rampaging toddler ran around the store, pulling $3,000 camera bodies off the shelf, while my wife and the photographer knelt on the floor to coax her awake.

I printed them out, had a mate come over and witness the back of the photo and the form, in black not blue ink, and then made an appointment with the post office.

I approached the counter with an armful of paperwork and a triumphant expression. The post office worker ignored the pile of documents and gestured dismissively at the photo: "That's unacceptable."

"What! Why?"

"There's a shadow under her chin."

I was speechless. She doesn't even have a chin. I imploded.

I looked like Tony Abbott in his famous interview with Mark Riley, so angry he could only shake his head and stare. Mum, dad, toddler, baby and grandma trudged back to another camera shop.

Although Isla will always look a little surprised in her first passport photo, it was accepted. ( Supplied: Adam Harvey )

'Don't worry, we can photoshop that out'

There was a young guy behind the counter. He was a hipster with a topknot who looked like he was about 16.

"Wow, that baby's really small. What is it, like six months old?"

This is going to go well, I thought.

I was pretty blunt. "The post office rejected these photos. Can you see why?"

"Oh yeah. It's like waaay too dark. There's shadows everywhere. And the background isn't even white. It looks grey."

Maybe there's hope, I thought: "Can you do any better?"

"Definitely, what we'll do is hold it up against the screen and then if you lift it up and down quickly its eyes will open."

But we're not allowed to be in the shot, I say.

"Oh don't worry about that — I'll photoshop you out."

I bobbed Isla up and down in front of the camera as though I was about to toss her in the air. It worked perfectly. Her eyes opened on cue. The flash popped, and although Isla will always look a little surprised in her first passport photo, it was accepted.

There was another fortnight of Indonesian bureaucracy — but after the photo epic, that was a breeze.