This post is originally published on yoursunny.com blog https://yoursunny.com/t/2026/avatar/
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 750×750 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.
Note: the original article contains a CSS slider that compares 2010 and 2025 avatars.