Hey ho...  This is just a cool building near the White House.  I apparently have an affinity for red buildings, but most of them don't turn out so good when I take shots of them.  It's an exposure thing... I keep getting sucked into exposing for the background which normally underexposes the darker red building.

Anyway, this is one of the shots I took the other day with a circular polarizing filter.  Polarizing is smthng you can't do in Photoshop, so I generally try to make sure I've got a polarizer with me whenever I'm out shooting.  Polarizing does two distinct things that I know of... the first is easy to define... it gets rid of a lot of reflections.  This is why sunglasses are offered as polarized.  The other thing it does (which I don't fully understand) is to bring out details in clouds and shadow areas.  I don't know why or how it does this, but I'm glad it does.

I took another shot of this building without the polarizer and it looks like carp.  The sky is all washed out and the clouds are nothing more than pale streaks.  It's a pain to have to switch filters on a regular basis, but sometimes it's worth it.

BTW... I'll have another shot in a few days that I really like.  It's near the Washington Monument, but it's not of the monument.  It's another polarized shot with some really cool clouds.  But, the clouds look even better after a little Photoshop love.  I'm not quite done with my PhotoChopping, but it's looking pretty sweet so far.  I'll post it up when I'm done.  See ya!