What do you think about a member's user image?

I myself prefer to use a portrait of myself.

One of the reasons is to let everone know that I am for real and to have a presence in whatever I do.

To me using a portrait is to let everybody know that I have nothing to hide and that I am here to make friends

I must admit, I would not post a picture of myself on this, or any other forum, as a user pic. I worry sometimes when I see people using images of their little children too. I prefer to use my lovely blue dragon instead, to me he represents me perfectly and I am happy with him on here.

Actually, I dont really care about the avatar because ussualy I only read their response for a discusiion. Although I prefer if people can put their own picture so that I can see how they look like. Anyway it's about choice...so it doesn't bother me alot...

I use my own picture. The picture was taken by by bf (now my husband) when we went to a beach festivals 2 years ago..(LOL it's kinda old picture of mine..) I have a shorter hair now..

I don't know, I kind of think that the image a person chooses to represent him- or herself can say quite a bit about that person. Seeing a picture of the person can tell you what s/he looks like, but a chosen avatar can tell about interests, sense of humor, artistic sides, etc. It just seems that it tells so much more than a mere picture.

I don't think any less of a person for not posting their own picture as their avatar. I know that everyone has their reasons for making the decisions that they do. Sometimes I wish I could see a picture though, because I think it makes it easier to identify with who you are talking to. You can get a little better sense of someone's personality by seeing their picture.

Hey Ratzy,

I could never use my own image, simply because I don't do pictures, I have some pictures of me (exactly 2) on a hard drive somewhere in the house, but I want people to know me for who I am not what I look like so I do not use a picture of myself,

Although my image is one of the first digital pictures I ever took. And very very special to me

Mooch

Well for me, the reason i always use my own pictures as my display pic is because i want people to have a sense of who they are communicating with and responding to basically. When i am responding to a dsicussion here on mylot and i can actually see a picture of the person that i am talking to, it just makes me feel a whole more compfy in a sense. I dont think that there is anything wrong with having your own personal pic as youe avatar. It basically just shows what type of person that you are in a sense what you think about yourself. And everyone is not the same. SOme people just will nt post anytype of pics up on any website clarifying weho they are. It has nothing to do with how friendly they are or not. Some people just have different ways of doing things.

There are some people who assume that the people in the avatar looks like them or they want to be thought like the one in the avatar. I prefer using an abstract image as an avatar cos its something illogical like me. I like the way some people make abstract images and I love them a lot. The one which I have for present is my hand taken by myself, through the in built web cam from my MacBook. I love images like these which are way out of thoughts and are abstract.

I do not like my own photographs. So I never use them as my Avatars. Although there are many poses which my friends have advised that can be used as avatars, but I prefer to keep it to something like the one I have now...

bourne

I am one that uses a photograph of myself as an avatar. I started the site by using one that my husband took of me in NYC. He had a red filter on the camera when he took it. A lot of users have told me that they recognize me by the red photo, so when I wanted to update the photo I was at a loss. The NYC pic was the only red one that I had.
Then I decided to take another more recent photo from my hard drive. First I turned it black and white with photo editing software. Then I added the red. Problem solved!
It doesn't matter to me if someone uses their own picture or uses something else. I have seen some really cute animated ones!
I don't care for the green generic ones that mylot give you initially though. So the first thing I did here was try and figure out how to change that!

I like seeing all the different images that people use. I think for most of us, it speaks volumes about our personalities.

I have no problem showing an image of myself, but I prefer not to. The crocus flower that I use is a copyrighted image taken by me just a few weeks ago, so it's personal to me, and I like that.