"It's a bitch learning to be a photographer if you're not one to begin with."

LOL, ain't it the truth :-)

What helped me learn is the partial automatic modes on the Canon. They have presets for common conditions like portraiture, sun, low light (I think).

Often I would put the camera on fully automatic and just saw what the camera picked for exposure, etc. Then I'd play with the settings on manual to see if I could do better.

And gawd I hope my pics got better after I started. Once I got enough content I ditched the worst of it.

Now I'm going through the same thing with video, which I find much harder ....