There is a quote by Ansel Adams that I think applies to many if not all photographers whether they realize it or not.

"You don't make a photograph just with a camera. You bring to the act of photography all the pictures you have seen, the books you have read, the music you have heard, the people you have loved." -Ansel Adams

I believe that when you realize this is the case with your own photography, you are just beginning to ask the right questions in order to move to the next level.

When I first began taking pictures, I was doing little more than documenting moments in time. Later, I began to make photographs. This involved intention and really "seeing" what I was shooting as opposed to merely capturing whatever lay before me in the viewfinder. Later still, I began previsualizing my photographs and then taking steps to make those images take form. Whether this involved waiting for the light in a landscape, or learning how to use strobes to create the light and mood that I wanted to convey in my images. I'm at the point where I'm now trying to make a statement or tell a story with a photograph or a series of images and also evoke a mood or an emotional response from my viewer. I'm still working on this and may continue to work on it for the rest of my life.

One of the things that I love most about photography is that it is a journey that never ends. I will never reach a destination. And if I do, I never understood the point in the first place.