Buy a pretend roll of 24 shot film. Then go someplace, anyplace, and take photos but pretend you only have 24 shots. One of the problems that I find is that it is too easy to take multiple photos. If you limit yourself to 24 you have to think about it, move around to different angles, be careful about what is in the background, check where the light is coming from, other unwanted shadows in the photograph? Just take 24 and come back and analyze them. And then if you get the chance, go back to the same place and do it again having already reviewed the first 24 photographs with some ideas in your mind of how you can improve it and go back and take 24 more. Then try somewheres else will take 24 photographs , Go home and analyze them. Check for your focus, check for camera shake, check to see if anything is blown out on the high side or just invisible of the Darkside. Maybe take a few that Will come out weird which is perfect as long as they come out weird the way you expected. Then go back the next day and shoot another 24 at the same place. Pretty soon you start paying more attention to what you're shooting.

A number of years ago I took a weeklong workshop and afterwords the teacher told me that in all the years that she had been teaching the course I had the best knowledge of dynamic range, signal to noise ratio, and all the technical aspects of shooting a photo. She also told me I took the worst photos she had seen which was exactly what I needed. This was on the third day and she really pressed on me the importance of not just walking up and taking a shot but thinking the shot through, if I took three steps to the left then that rock would not overlap The other rock and we could see sunlight between them – that kind of thing that I never thought of. It was a great week. So pay more attention to what you shoot because by now you certainly have the skills to take a good shot. And mostly have fun.

What tyedyetommy said, It's time to start thinking outside the books, and start trusting your eye, your instincts, and a few others alluded to is what might be the most helpful advice right now.

It sounds as though you may be so tied up in left brain thinking and technique that you aren't allowing the creativity to grow. Get away from thinking and just feel.

Rather than be concerned about perfect exposure, depth of field or focal length, allow yourself to get lost in the moment. Find subjects, scenes, weather, cities or events that are of great interest to you outside of photography and then go and take a bunch of pictures of it, them, that. Have fun while you're at it!

Then evaluate which of your results best represents the mood, emotion, feeling of your experience.

Check out these short articles:

Linda, thanks for the links. I like your work and your attitude towards your photography. I will take your comments seriously.

http://photographylife.com/whats-important-in-a-photograph-and-what-isnt/

http://www.simplerphoto.com/technically-perfect/

Don't let obsession with technical perfection or following the "rules" outweigh inspiration, creativity and emotion.

Get out of your comfort zone and take images of new subjects/genre.

I went to college for a year. It did not really teach me about using a camera but it did teach me about many different genres and to take images within them. So instead of taking holiday, landscape and celebrations I moved onto studio, models, still life, portraits, environmental, film and darkroom, large format, macro, infrared, impossible images, sport, and theory (which it sounds like you already have). I have probably forgotten a few topics.

I am sort of in the same boat as you. I wasn't a total beginner, but I have only taken my progression in photography seriously for the last twelve months. I feel I have developed enormously in those twelve months. I read a lot, I do courses and workshops, go to my camera club regularly and get out and shoot at least every weekend. However, posting my shots here on UHH has been by far, the greatest tool in my progression. I made a commitment to myself to post here at least once a month. For the most part I have kept to that commitment. That commitment doesn't just make me get out shooting, but challenges me to produce better shots. The feedback gives great encouragement and often produces great suggestions and advice. Even 'views' that don't leave feedback can be a measure of what works and what doesn't.
Taking physical (as opposed to online) courses is also a great way to develop. Course assignments make you push yourself. My last class assignment was to take 9 shots of a plain white bed sheet. My first reaction was 'what the hell!!!' , but the challenge pushed me to try a bunch of things like macro and starbursts that I might not have tried otherwise.

I don't think it has been mentioned here, but as a musician you get better by copying what better musicians do. You can apply the same with photography. Find photos on flickr you admire. Look at the settings (f-stop, iso, shutter speed and focal length of the picture). Then try to copy pics you admire until you can produce something similar. That will improve your photography. Trying to study techniques can help to some extent, but you can use good technique and still get a mediocre picture. The same is true in painting. Painters learn by copying other paintings. There comes that aha moment when you get it right. Just like playing an instrument, and just the same with a camera. Practice without a target won't do it. You can practice for ten years, but without a target you will just have 6 months of experience, repeated 20 times.

Be your own critic. Look at your work from year to year. If you can't look at something you did last March and say to yourself -"what was I thinking?" then you aren't advancing. This forum is overrun with people who read a lot and are "experts" but never really take pictures, preferring to just talk about photography - don't be that guy.

The best way to do this is a two-pronged approach - take more pictures, and look at the work of others. If you like something, ask yourself "why?" and vice versa. Then look at your own work and repeat the process. Your ability to rely on your own aesthetic sense, developing it along the way, will get you to where you want to go. For now - put the books and courses and other instructionals away - buy a huge hard drive (or two) and start filling it up.

If you think about it for a while, it'll make sense even in a logical manner (common sense). A wide angle is called wide, because it seems to stretch things, you see everything from a wider perspective, while a tele is going the other way, it "kinda" compresses things, so when looked at, they seem closer together than usual. The same thing happens if you look through a magnifying glass, or think about using a pair of binoculars, it brings everything closer to you, while appearently compressing things together (that part of perspective - the distance - is lost at viewing point,but if you turn your binoculars around, it shows the reverse! Things stretching apart as they get wider. The same thing happens with every change in focal length (changing lenses on your camera) A different view on the perspective!

If you really want to get esoteric- perspective does not really exist at all. It is merely how the eye and the brain "see" the scene. The eye and brain can be fooled to see things that aren't really there. optical illusions for instance. It you look at railroad tracks as the go away, they aopear to get closer. They. of course , do not. The moon looks bigger when it's close to the horizon. It is, of course, the same size, as when it's higher. Mirages. walking on water are 2 other examples