Getting to grips with photography is dependent on a) visual skill (seeing composition and light), b) learning how to manipulate the camera to capture that (as fundamental and simple as learning to hold a paintbrush).
The next important thing c) is your understanding of your subject. You can be the best wildlife photographer in the world and be unable to capture a decent landscape image. So to become a great portrait photographer, you need to learn about people, to like people, to engage (or not, if that's your style).
'Settings' are just a tool to deal with the amount of light you have, and how you want to record your subject, just part of holding the paintbrush. And the longer photographers spend thinking settings are important, the more they're holding themselves back from the other more important things.