Photography is FUN and ART in that order.
My name is Mark Hall I live in Derby England and I know you have heard this before but "I am a self taught amateur"
The Two professionals whom I take my inspiration from are Peter Parker and Jimmy Olsen.
My advice to anyone starting out is to Join a local photographic society (not the Cliquey ones), read some of the great magazines out there and research your equipment on Non bias web sites such as Ken Rockwell's site and read books by Bryan Peterson.
Buy the best camera you can afford and never, never skimp on Lens, you get what you pay for in a lens. If you buy the best lens you will not have to buy again if you move up to a better Camera body.
A cheap lens on an entry level Camera will work great but will be shown up on a Professional Camera body for what it is , but a good lens will be good on all cameras. (I learnt by making that mistake).

I started taking images with my wife's Olympus trip before buying myself a bridge camera shortly after I purchasing my first DSLR and became hooked.
I have used Canon and Nikon equipment and have chosen Nikon as the better of the two makes, the Nikons are so easy to use and in my opinion my images have improved from the first image I took using a Nikon.
The only Photographic books I have ever found interesting and Inspirational have all been written by BRYAN PETERSON especially "Learning to see Creatively"

My equipment

Camera

Nikon D90

Lens
Nikon 70-300mm AF-S VR
Nikon 24-70mm 2.8
Nikon 105mm Micro VR
Nikon 10.5mm 2.8

Other stuff
Nikon SB900 flash
Manfrotto 190Xprob Tri-pod with a 804RC2 head
Manfrotto Mono pod

Hoya Filters
HMC PRO1 UV filters (for lens protection)
CIR_Polarizing
ND Grads


Software
CS3
Topaz adjust
Tiffen DFX
Photomatrix Pro