Photography - eyes most important for a good photo?

Looking for things to photograph led me to my patio. Unfortunately, this is nothing more than a writer rambling - no vision as to what the photo should look like. I once started reading one of Ansel Adam's books on photography (my God, my memory is so rotten I don't even remember the name of the book) and one thing that did stick was his philosophy of photography. Photography is an expression of art - a photographer knows what s/he wants the photo to convey. However, this takes years of study and practice. Much as I would like to practice this, I often draw a blank as to what I'd like a photo to say. Sometimes I do know what I'd like a photo to look like, but struggle to achieve the effect. This despite owning a fancy SLR camera and a fancy lens/es.

Photography is a fascinating art. It requires artistic imagination and technical knowledge of optics and the interplay of light with the subject. When S gifted me my SLR camera, I spent some time reading about apertures, shutter speeds, ISO, depth-of-field and what have you. During my quest for knowledge, I came across Ken Rockwell's website on photography that put my motives to shame. Ken Rockwell contends that to take good photos one need not have a fancy camera. What is required is artistic vision and good light. One can take good photos with a point-and-shoot just as well as with a fancy-shmancy SLR camera. Imagine my chagrin reading this just after my good husband had invested about $1500 on state-of-the-art camera and lens
technology (OK it's not state-of-the-art but after you spend this kind of money on a camera, you need to use your imagination to rationalize the purchase). I could virtually hear Mr. Rockwell laughing at me - you pathetic scientists and engineers - all you know to do is buy toys based upon useless technical data. I bet you analyzed the MTF curves of the lens, lost nights of sleep on deciding whether to get a camera with a CCD or CMOS sensor, contemplated getting a Ph. D. in optics ... Let me tell you something, some of the photos I took were straight out of a cell phone. If you do have a camera (like an SLR) you seldom need to go beyond the auto setting to get a great photo. All you need is a vision and patience to wait for the good light". (Mr. Rockwell has taken some fabulous photos and specializes in landscapes, if I dare say anything about his work).

So I spent a few weeks agonizing over my foolishness of insisting on needing an SLR camera to get any more fun out of my hobby. All my pride in shooting photos which were not fully saturated or clipped (er, overexposed or underexposed if I may use the photography jargon) using manual settings for aperture and shutter speeds vanished. Finally I decided that since I do have a fancy camera, I had better use it - which have led me to these experiments, and husband to exasperation for his folly of buying me a toy that brings out OCD traits in me.