I tell people all the time that the first “trick” to being a good photographer is to go out into the world and do photography. The second “trick” is to take everything you’ve read or learned about photography and experiment with it.
If you don’t try what you learn and experiment with it, you will never come to understand the nuance of it. For example, speedlights are not exactly like strobes, but if you practice with them enough you can mimic the effects of a strobe with a speedlight. The same goes for pretty much every other piece of photography equipment. The different brands of lenses out there are similar in function, but they are not duplicates. There are minor differences that you will want to learn about.
Furthermore, experimentation can really help with inspiration in two ways:
1) It helps you understand how to better put the pieces together once inspiration hits. Afterall, if you already learned how to utilize that light technique or that focus technique your inspiration calls for, you aren’t suddenly wasting time, or worse, muddying the vision as you struggle to make that technique appear. You already know how to make those pieces fit so they slide right in to form those parts of the picture.
2) Oftentimes experimentation can result in being the inspiration itself. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve worked with my lights and said to myself “hey, this setup would really work well with this idea!” and suddenly a whole other session is being planned.
And this applies to any craft, if you want to succeed, you need to go beyond just reading – you need to experiment with what you learned about.
These photos were from an experimentation session. I have two lights, one strobe off to the side with a long softbox to bring out the subject’s face and a speedlight overhead to get that stage light look. I wasn’t even planning to photograph the toddler, but she came out when I was finished setting up and I just went with it. I got a few ideas from this session so I’m glad I went with it.