Reddit mentions of The Great LIFE Photographers

You might want to familiarize yourself with the photographers featured in the following books:

• National Geographic: The Photographs
  
• The Great LIFE Photographers
  
• Magnum: Magnum

From Art and Fear by David Bayles and Ted Orland:

>The ceramics teacher announced on opening day that he was dividing the class into two groups. All those on the left side of the studio, he said, would be graded solely on the quantity of work they produced, all those on the right solely on its quality. His procedure was simple: on the final day of class he would bring in his bathroom scales and weigh the work of the "quantity" group: fifty pound of pots rated an "A", forty pounds a "B", and so on. Those being graded on "quality", however, needed to produce only one pot -- albeit a perfect one -- to get an "A". Well, came grading time and a curious fact emerged: the works of highest quality were all produced by the group being graded for quantity. It seems that while the "quantity" group was busily churning out piles of work - and learning from their mistakes -- the "quality" group had sat theorizing about perfection, and in the end had little more to show for their efforts than grandiose theories and a pile of dead clay.

I like your pictures a lot. You are onto something. I think you have a good eye for photography. Keep shooting like this. Don't get distracted by post-processing your pictures now. You already know what is worth photographing. Your framing is good. Your work is better than most hobbyists after years of gear talk so be careful who you take advice from. The only thing you should be doing at this point is shooting a lot and buy some photography books, not the technical stuff or books about composition. Start with something general like this:

http://www.amazon.com/Great-LIFE-Photographers-Editors/dp/0316097934

I advocate for The Great LIFE Photographers.