Brian,
I highly recommend reading some photography classics, e.g. "joy of photography"... The information on UW photography available--- In my opinion, is geared all towards tech stuff and what to buy or how to set up... all VERY useful, but very few and none that I've found, will teach you what makes a good photograph and how to relate emotion.
getting feedback on your photo's, as was smartly suggested above, is tremendiously helpful , ask for honesty and don't feel you should defend anything... the first 10,000 photo's you take will be crap... a famous (can't think of the name) photographer said that long ago, and it was in the days of film...
bottom line... learn photography, then go diving with a camera.
Look at UW photo's from some of the great UW photogs on these pages, then figure out what makes their stuff great.
Scott
