Generally speaking, you've hit the nail on the head.

How do you know what good sushi is? You go taste lots of sushi that is reported to be good!

How do you know what good photography is? You go study and look at photography that is reported to be good (and that you enjoy)!

If you're trying to photograph something without having a well defined sense of what you personally think is good, then you're setting yourself up for failure. You need to study other works in the field.

There's definitely no technical outline to what is creatively good.

The creative learning process in general can be well broken down into four steps (for nearly any creative endeavor, not just photography):

1. Study. Learn everything you can about how to do the creative craft you're pursuing. Read books, read blogs, go to shows, ask questions, LEARN.

2. Taste. You have to develop your sense of taste. You do this by consuming large amounts of other people's work who are highly regarded in the area that you are pursuing. If you don't know what is good, then you won't know how to make what you consider good. Since you've already studied in step 1 - look at the examples with an eye towards how they were done as well.

3. Copy. Convince yourself to take the time to stylistically recreate some of the works you saw in step 2. This will help you hone your skills but not have the burden of being 'creative'. You'll learn muscle memory and pick up tons of little 'tricks' that only happen when you get out there and start 'doing it'.

4. Create. Now that you have the knowledge, the taste, and the skills you can focus on creating your own works. Draw inspiration from what you've seen, what you would change while doing step 3, and in general the world around you.