Where does YOUR photography come from?

I thought I'd make my first blog not the "About Me" thing, although I definatley need to get that in here sometime. I wanted to give a taste of how I'd try to have this thing go. So with that, I'm off to my first attempt at blogging!

I try to keep up with some major photography blogs everyday. Alot of them are good reads and I've got some saved in an RSS feed so they're easy to find. I read one from Chase Jarvis' blog ( http://www.chasejarvis.com/blog/2008/02/kader-attia-it-comes-from-within.html) the other day that was really inspiring. He goes on about a person in particular, but it's not the person that's so inspiring, it's on little thing that he describes about the conversation:

" We're swapping stories and nuggets of fun information, when suddenly he pauses, looks me straight in the eyes, taps his fingers on his chest and drops this bomb on me in his cool French accent:
'You know, Chase, we’ve got to find our art from within.'
Pause.
It’s so simple, yet so easily glossed over in our day to day lives as creative professionals.

Later the same day, I read this on the PopPhoto website:

"...Rodney Lough Jr. -- also an eminent large-format landscape photographer and teacher (www.theloughroad.com) -- asks his students to reveal the worst thing that's ever happened to them: Step One in unleashing their inner 9-year-old.

Welcome to the Zen side of photography. Butcher, Lough, and others believe that nontechnical -- even nonvisual -- approaches lead to better pictures. The idea: to tap your creativity through intuition and self-contemplation, to forget your preoccupations, and to enjoy the moment of shooting."

Very profound. I bring this up because my best friend has accused me of having a very "generic" style. He once said to me: "You know Chuck, you're a brilliant photographer, but, I dont know... I feel like I've seen all your pictures before." I steped back and thought about it, and he's right. Not much of my work is truly inspired by ME. It's inspired by some other photographer or picture that I've seen. I've struggled since then to try to find more photography from within myself instead of within the camera. Tell me if you share my plight or if you have insight into this subject.

Here's MY inspiration: