Instant Inspiration

So, I know that people find inspiration from all kinds of weird and wonderful things, everything from books and films to a specific location or pet. But there are certain things that spark people's imaginations every time when it comes to photography. Or so I believe. It may not be the case, but there a some things that reoccur in people's photos, ideas that people are constantly re-working, re-using and re-imagining.

For me it's sunsets. I have 30 photos of sunrises and sunsets on flickr and mainly it's because they're easy to access and so many people just let life go by and don't pay the slightest bit of attention to the beauty they can see every day. This offends me.

The possibility of seeing the sun set is the one thing I most look forward to after finishing college (that, and sleeping) and I find it insulting that people can just wander idly by and not even notice the magnificence of nature. And I'm sure other people feel this way about whatever inspires them the most.

Sorry, this post sounds really angry and I don't mean it to. I'm just passionate about what I'm talking about.

On a lighter note, here is yesterday's sunset:

Inspiration vs. A Good Photo

About 3 months ago I got my first DSLR (he's called Gregory) and have been using him almost every day since then. But I was wondering if there's a strong positive correlation (yeah, I do A-level Statistics) between a photographer's inspiration and the quality of the resulting photo.

Up until recently I didn't get inspired by anything, I just took photos of things I thought looked nice, and my photos were consistently average. Case in point:

But now I've actually got inspiration (which seemed to be the moment I started doing self portraits), my photos appear to be consistently below average. Such as:

However, when I look at other people's photos on Flickr, the photos that were inspired by something or someone- whether that be a friend, a film, a song or just a line of text- tend to be the most interesting shots of theirs.

Is there just a fault in brain that's constantly giving me bad ideas? Or am I just terrible at executing ideas- so bad that I actually execute them? I think I may be the murderer of good ideas.