In computing, an avatar is a graphical representation of a user, the user's character, or persona. An avatar can be a two-dimensional picture, also known as a profile picture or userpic, or a three-dimensional digital representation, often used in games.
My existing avatar has been in use since 2010. It was created from a selfie taken at Expo 2010 Shanghai, where I proudly visited every pavilion. I stood in front of the Expo Axis, placed my Canon E1000D atop a trash can near the Hong Kong pavilion, and used the self-timer feature of the DSLR camera to capture the selfie. The picture depicts me wearing a white sleeveless shirt and a black backpack, in front of background of trees, people, and the Expo Axis. Subsequently, I cropped the image with Adobe Photoshop, blurred the background, and produced the final image.
Over the years, as I expanded my online presence, readers from dozens of social media websites and forums have seen my avatar. It has become part of my online identity, my personal brand.
In 2016, I realized that I still have the same shirt as shown in my avatar. On the 6-year anniversary of the original picture, I took a new photo of me in the same outfit, in front of a cactus behind the university. In 2020, I did it again for the 10-year anniversary, but indoors due to COVID-19 pandemic. Nevertheless, I did not adopt either picture as my avatar, because they have drastically different backgrounds and would make me unrecognizable online.
By 2025, I grew unhappy with my avatar. Firstly, the 2010 avatar was produced as 750x750 image resolution, which is insufficient by today's standards. Secondly, my real life appearance has changed over the years, and I wanted to showcase my more recent look. I wanted to remake my avatar, but in the same style so that it remains recognizable.
On a cool summer day, I put on the shirt (yes, the same one) and a black backpack, and set out to find the perfect background for my new avatar. I took a bus to Rock Creek Park in Washington DC, hiked the north floodplain area, and found a patch of woods with enough trees that resembled my 2010 avatar. I placed my iPhone 16e on a fence post, turned on the Portrait mode, and captured the perfect image after multiple tries waiting for the perfect sunlight. It depicts me wearing the same white sleeveless shirt and a similar black backpack, in front of some trees but no people or building. Apple Intelligence has already blurred the background for me, so that I do not need to use Photoshop again.
After the trip, I quickly forgot that I took the new picture for my avatar, so that it wasn't uploaded. Today, as I worked on archiving my photos by moving out from Dropbox, I re-discovered this image, and decided to finish the effort. I cropped the image with PicPick application, optimized the file with Ezgif, and then uploaded the final result to Gravatar so that it would appear in all the forums where I have a presence. With that, my new avatar is launched.
