Learning to Take Good Pictures

Call me silly but when my new, shiny camera arrived in the mail, I thought "Yippee, I'm gonna take great pictures!" Well, maybe not those exact words but along those lines. It didn't quite work out that way! You see, part of taking great pictures is science (knowing how the camera works, the logistics of subject placement, yada, yada, yada) the other part is art (seeing in your minds eye what you want the subject to look like and making that happen). I had no problem with the art part. I've always been a very visual person but I've not always been a scientific person. I had a quick run-down on camera operation by my friend, Jeff, at work. After playing around a little I was starting to get the hang of it. I also learned to use my camera to take black and whites. All other black and whites that I've posted have been edited using software. This is the "straight out of the camera shot".
Please excuse the play clothes and messy hair. Like I said, we were just playing around but this one is pretty good if I do say so myself!