Histograms are not like Mammograms

So even though I sorta knew what they were for, I now have a better understanding of histograms thanks to a couple of posts over at life with my 3 boybarians.

(And for those of you who aren't sure, histograms have nothing to do with your ovaries or having a hysterectomy. They are a graphical representation of the light in the pixels of a photograph....uh...I think.)

I've always stuggled with knowing if the lighting in my photos was good...or at least adequate. I knew that the histogram could tell me. After all, like Darcy said over at her blog, "Pixels don't lie." I also knew that histograms were pretty simple and that one side meant dark and one side meant light.

But.....what she didn't say was that pixels aren't very direct either.

I was really hoping that my histograms would tell me one of two things:

Either

GOOD PHOTO: You are really good at this. This is a great shot. You should post this.

Or

BAD PHOTO: You do not know what you are doing. Throw your camera in the garbage. Do not go past go. Do not collect $200.

But...*sigh*... this is not the case. Even though I do feel more comfortable translating a histogram, there are still so many aspects of a photograph that make it "good" or "bad", my head just spins.

And why do I even care?

I just want pics of my kids.....right?

But taking pictures makes me happy....

...except for when the pictures are truly horrible and I don't know how to make them better. Which is often. So very often.

*Sigh*

It's okay...I'm learning....slowly.

I so wanted to join the Holiday Bokeh Party at "life with my 3 boybarians" but I just couldn't get a good bokeh shot with any of our Christmas lights around here. But if you like good photography and if you like Christmas, I encourage you to go take a look at all the pretty shots by clicking HERE.