a Minor Hindrance

I got a new toy today! Woo hoo! How long have I been saying that I need a polarizer? A long time. So I went to Henry's an hour before they opened today 'cause they were giving out gift certificates. I got $10 (boo!) Some kind soul who decided they weren't going to use their gave me their $25 (yay!) because I was first in line, and they felt like being really nice (thank you again, whoever you are!!!) I finally called up Marianne and got her to come over (they were still handing out gift certificates till 90 minutes after they opened) and she got $100 (uber yay!) and felt like letting me use most of it. So there is the story of my polarizer, if anyone cares.

So this thing is really cool. It will block out extraneous skylight, reflections in glass and water, and it will even pull most of the specular highlights off of nearly everything (ie. people, plants, concrete, ect.) It can also pull nearly all the reflection off of a street sign. I shot something similar to the above just to see how it would fair, but I had to take a double take and compose this shot properly, because it had some serious potential.

I actually spent a lot of time on the colour and level of detail in the leaves. They look very cartoony (at least compared to the original) adding to the extremely graphic look of this shot.

Why did I compose it the way I did? I tried to make it look like the sign was dominating, well, everything. I wanted it to look like it was saying that there was no exit to the massive amount of space behind it. Even the sky is a cage in the confined space behind this sign. It also looks neat. Yay! So what do y'all think about it?

edit: to see the effect of a polarizer, take a look here. Note the reflection on the sign (duh), the specular highlights on the leaves, and the uniformity of the value of the sky. This isn't entirely without a polarizer, it's just rotated 90 degrees to the above. I also haven't taken the time to do the colours and density the same. It's just for educational purposes.