It’s winter here in the Midwest – so naturally, some of my work on the photography side has taken the backseat. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I love taking shots of snow – but I don’t like being outside THAT much. Because of the indoor nature of the season, I also usually use this time to revisit old web projects and tests that either didn’t work out, or just need some polishing.

So I set aside a weekend, actually two, and just reworked and reenvisioned some old projects – and from it, I learned a lot.

For one, it was very interesting – and even hilarious – to see some of the first work I ever tried my hand at. This includes some poorly lit photos, and some shoe-string, barely-functional JavaScript I had written to create a random dice roll (every developer’s first project, essentially).

But I soon realized how important it was to see these projects. Not only to see how far I have come and all that I have learned – but also that there were some gems hidden deep in my early years that actually turned out to be amazingly beneficial and workable. This included the above photo, which I initially thought was way too blown out, but turned out to be a store-quality shot. It also included some boilerplate code that I use to this day.

Long story short, never give up on your old project. Go check them out, get new eyes on them. You never know what you will find.