do you cringe at your own legacy photos taken

Both. Some of my old stuff makes me cringe, but some is good. The majority of my good shots throughout my last seven years of learning/shooting were by luck. A small amount were through skill and planning.

I'm still learning, but the ratio is improving. I'm still on the luck side, but I'm much better now at thinking through more steps before pressing the button (light, framing, color, etc) but I have a long way to go.

I'm finally doing the right thing and reading proper instruction (Understanding Exposure by Bryan Peterson) and spending more time planning shots instead of spray and pray.

Furthermore, my processing skills have improved steadily and at a faster rate than my shooting skills, so cropping, balancing and more are helping take so-so pictures up to pretty-good status.

The majority of the shots that make other people say "wow" are still based in luck, however, but I'll be doing this throughout the remainder of my life, so I can only improve.

Nevertheless, I have some early shots that I will always love, regardless of what anyone else thinks, such as this from my first DSLR in 2008:

Rob Machado, pro surfer and former fellow high school student.

I've been going through older pictures of my daughter, culling ones that never got shared, and re-processing some of them since I have a newer version of Lightroom than I had back then. So many of her newborn shots are just awkwardly composed, the wrong orientation, and have major white balance issues. To me, this is the biggest reason to shoot raw. I've learned a lot about post-processing in the last couple of years so many of the issues are fixable. But I look at some of the original edits and think, "Ugh, what was I thinking?"

If we have another baby, I'll definitely invest in some posing aids. I have way too many "up the nose" shots of my daughter before she could sit up on her own.

I have just started using Light Room 5 and have gone back and re edited some of my photos, it made them look better, yes my shooting skills have improved but my editing has improved further over the last few weeks, biggest difference is how LR 5 handles noise reduction.

I guess "legacy" can mean different things for different people. For me it is a time when digital photography did not exist and all we had was negative film and slides. What is most amazing is that the pictures that I thought were outstanding and perfect many years back would fail miserably in the pixel peeping me today. The only thing that might be still off is Dynamic Range ... but with HDR and even the latest sensors that last hurdle has been overcome. It is just amazing how much photography technology has progressed and sometimes you only really appreciate it when you look back at work done many years back.

I was talked into photographing a friends wedding one month into getting my first dslr in 2008 admittedly it didn't take much convincing, because heck I had a nice camera. I got lucky and got a couple decent shots, but the rest serve as a reminder to keep learning to this day.

Personally I love seeing how bad my old work was, because it reaffirms that I am making progress! That difference is evidence that you are improving your skills or developing your personal style.

Still, it is fun to look back and see some of my "lucky" shots taken on ancient gear when I had no idea what I was doing. Take enough and some of them are bound to look good.

Jemhead wrote in post #16675570
I was talked into photographing a friends wedding one month into getting my first dslr in 2008 admittedly it didn't take much convincing, because heck I had a nice camera. I got lucky and got a couple decent shots, but the rest serve as a reminder to keep learning to this day.

I also did a friends daughters wedding back in 2008. I did advise at the time that I only had a normal DSLR (350d crop) but as they were short on cash they didn't mind and we're happy with the JPEG photos that were shot on the green box setting with a pop up flash and the 18-55 non IS kit lens as at the time I hadn't got a clue about settings anyway..
I didn't take any direct payment, he just paid for my hotel room as it was out of town..
I don't even dare look in the folder containing the shots as it's too embarrassing ..
Wheres that head in hand .gif then you need it? LoL

Edit. Funny thing is that back then I used to go into my local camera shop and see the prices of 1Ds and 5Ds and lenses and think what idiot in their right mind would pay so much for a bloody camera or white lens...

Not really.

Back in pre-digital days when I was shooting Kodachrome at ASA 25 it was a far more expensive proposition and post processing was limited to instructions to a printing company since I didn't have a colour darkroom. So I took far more care with each shot.

Few of the recent pix I took on Kauai with unlimited space on memory cards are as good as the ones I took 40 years ago there when carrying only a few rolls of film in my backpack.

Nick_Reading.UK wrote in post #16672289
I have just been looking through some of my old stuff, trying to see what I have got that's half decent..
Shadows, not even a tad of DOF, lighting cr4p, alsorts of things in the background.. Just all wrong !!

Any one else.. ( I know we all have to learn and we're beginners at some point!! but, still !!)........

Not really. I have rejected a fair percentage from just about every batch I've ever taken, going back 40 years. I still end up with obvious trash - the only advantage being that I haven't wasted any film. What I've saved from the past, is either a good image, or it has fond memories attached to it - usually both.

But along the lines of the original topic, just about every time I go through my Lightroom folders, I will delete one or 2 images. They are usually ones that I kept just to see if I could play with them and redeem them. When that fails, they are gone.

However, not all rejects are rejects. Just as quick example of what I mean, this would normally have been tagged as a reject for obvious reasons (can you say "Wrong metering mode?"):

HTTP response: NOT FOUND | MIME changed to 'image/gif' | Redirected to error image by FLICKR

Preeb wrote in post #16676797
Not really. I have rejected a fair percentage from just about every batch I've ever taken, going back 40 years. I still end up with obvious trash - the only advantage being that I haven't wasted any film. What I've saved from the past, is either a good image, or it has fond memories attached to it - usually both.

But along the lines of the original topic, just about every time I go through my Lightroom folders, I will delete one or 2 images. They are usually ones that I kept just to see if I could play with them and redeem them. When that fails, they are gone.

However, not all rejects are rejects. Just as quick example of what I mean, this would normally have been tagged as a reject for obvious reasons (can you say "Wrong metering mode?"):

HTTP response: NOT FOUND | MIME changed to 'image/gif' | Redirected to error image by FLICKR

However, since it was a photo of the uncle of a good friend, and his Rake 'n Scrape band was playing at a public event, I didn't reject it automatically. After some work in LR, I came up with this (I really love that 70-200):

Good work

I spend a week in Kyoto, Japan sightseeing. I took my 650D, my 17-55mm 98% of shots and my 50 1.4 2% of shots.
I had a great time, I probab;y too 100+ photos a day, going to station to stations, site to site, each day a new place. THe lighting was not prefect at each location and a couple days it rained heavily. Out is about 800 photos I got about 8 that really came together, in my opinion. I was not there for the photography, but it was a large part of my experience.
If I could do it over, the only thing I would change is my own patience to frame a shot.
I look over many of them that are terrible and some that could have been better if people had not walked into my shot.
(summer is tourist season and I was a tourist there)
I refuse to delete even terrible photos and kept all of mine. 5 years from now I will look back and laugh, but theres no reason to erase photos I could never get back, no matter how underskilled I was.

dmnelson wrote in post #16676698
Personally I love seeing how bad my old work was, because it reaffirms that I am making progress! That difference is evidence that you are improving your skills or developing your personal style.

Still, it is fun to look back and see some of my "lucky" shots taken on ancient gear when I had no idea what I was doing. Take enough and some of them are bound to look good.

I was fortunate enough to read something like this when I first started. That is, to keep images you've taken, even if years later you realize they are awful. Just so you can look back and see your progress. That being said, I obviously don't keep every shot due to space on my hard drive, but I've kept some through each year.

same here but I can see some improvement over time so there is hope

I think there's real gems with anyones older portfolios. I look at mine and think "what were you thinking?" and then other times I think hmmm that's ok.

These days I don't share even a tenth of what I used to share. They say that if you want to be better than someone, then be better than yourself. I used to share everything I ever shot, and I cringe at some of the things I posted on 500px, and sat and wondered what the hell was wrong.

In the last three days I've had three images shoot to 96% and stay there for three days. By no means a milestone or a measure of 'good' photography, however, a personal achievement for me.

Shooting everyday really helps.

Looking at older photos gives me the opportunity (aka pain) to see where I've been and how I captured it, and the hope to get to where my photos are what I want them to be.

self critique is a good thing, ditch the rose colored glasses & coldly assess what you've captured and learn from yourmistakes, that's how I plan to improve.