Polling Station

I live almost across the road from a polling station, but instead I have to make a trek to a polling station some distance away. Some quirk of where the boundaries are drawn I suppose. The photograph shows a church, but for today it is a polling station.


For no particular reason I wondered why voting stations are called polling stations. Apparently it derives from Middle German or Dutch meaning "head". Its first recorded use as a collection of votes was in the 1620s. So literally the place to go for a head count.

I took a photograph of my polling station before I went in. The photograph is maybe over processed. There was a cloudless sky, so I added a few clouds for interest, then boosted the saturation, contrast and sharpening of the cobbles, roof tiles and stonework. Maybe I went a bit too far with the saturation!

The roof of the church tiles are patterned, but the colours have either faded or were quite subtle to begin with.