The photograph in the passport does not imply the expression. The expression here is expressly prohibited by the rules of shooting. All is set: background color, composition, expression. You can't even smile or look to the side. The people in these photos are no different from each other. But photographer Max Siedentopf (Max head) found a way to circumvent the restrictions.
Requirements: 35 x 45, color photograph (not b/W), without shadows, the applicant should look directly at the camera, eyes wide open, neutral facial expression (no smiling, mouth closed). German photographer Max Siedentopf not violated any of these rules, but the proposed models do outside of the frame everything that comes into their head.
This is a beautiful metaphor of life, divided into two unequal parts: the official, in which each of us is subordinate to the society and the state, and personal, in which we individual.
Beyond the same official photos the people were a strange, anarchic creatures who resist any attempt to systematize itself.