I still have reservations about someone who’s currently shooting with a phone trying to give encouragement to someone who’s actually honing his craft with a camera that gives him full control of what they’re shooting, but you seem to be inviting it.

First, you and I have different shooting styles and different ideas of how to craft an image. You take much more “faithful,” representative shots of your subjects being what they are (with proper context) where as I love playing with basic elements like composition, color, texture etc. and I tend not to care about much anything else as far as actual content is concerned. I feel I have developed a visual vocabulary that defines what I shoot and how I shoot it, and admittedly one of my weaknesses is that I tend to look at the gestalt image as opposed to details or even subject of an image, where as you’re more infatuated with your subjects for what they are, and that’s a strength I would keep focusing and working with - learning how to portray your subjects in the most flattering, expressive and rich way that you can.

Also, if you can, shoot with a film SLR for a while. It’s a great way to learn discipline, frugality and patience.

Take this with a grain of salt, it’s just my amateur opinion and me trying to say something that might encourage or help you out. Again, I’m just enamored with making pretty pictures and I’m shooting with a phone at the moment. I’m no Diane Arbus.