I started about a year and a half ago taking photos with a point and shoot and I saw some good images come out of the process. I then decided to learn to use my Father's 30 year old 35mm Pentax film camera that took some of the most crisp photos that I'd seen so I kept steadily at it. In Community College I took one B&W darkroom class and one digital photography class. In these classes I got a much better understanding of how to use my tools.
I use Imagenomic's tools, especially Portraiture and Noiseware to edit most of my images. These plugins help me to take it to the next level of creativity, especially in my abstract/architecture images.