If you happen to live in the United States, all you’ve heard about lately is the elections. (Chances are you’ve heard a lot about it even if you don’t live here.)

But when you get right down to it, the actual act of voting is so mundane, so taken-for granted, that more than a third of Americans didn’t even bother in 2004.

That’s why we like the New York Times’ Polling Place Photo Project. It elevates the ordinary, bland places where history is made.

Photographing your polling place is a great challenge: it makes you rethink the importance of what goes on there.

We challenge you to cast that church basement or high-school auditorium in heroic light, to raise the sleepy, coffee-deprived people lining up before work onto their proper civic pedestal.

And why stop there? Why not get out and document the process leading up to the election? Photograph the rallies, the clever posters, your friends arguing politics. If there was ever a year for political photography, this is it.

The Polling Place Photo Project

If you’re not in the United States, we’re dying to see how politics work in your country. What do the campaign posters look like? Do you have voter registration cards? Where do you vote? Post your pictures on the Photojojo Forum and tell us all about it!

Submit Photos of Your Country’s Political Process

p.s. New to the neighborhood? Don’t know where your polling place is? Google can tell you where to go.

p.p.s. Don’t forget to enter our Macro-zoom-ography Contest before it ends this Sunday, 10/26! The Nature Photography Contest is still going strong, too: enter here!

p.p.p.s. Some cities/counties/states allow photography in the polling place and some don’t. If yours doesn’t, please respect the rules, and be nice to your polling officer!

1. Prism Yard — A Place to Share & Browse Camera Collections You consider your cameras family. You remember the day each one came into your life, and you’ve shot handsome portraits of them all. Prism Yard...
2. Project 365: How to Take a Photo a Day and See Your Life in a Whole New Way People will often say that their whole lives flashed before their eyes after they experienced a traumatic event. Perhaps it’s a bit morbid, but we...
3. “What’s in your bag?” — a Photo Project Atlanta photog Jason Travis approached attractive young people and asked them to hand over their bags and man-purses. Instead of slapping him, they complied. Jason...
4. Photo Project: Tell a Story With Your Photos When you were small, you got to read books full of big, beautiful pictures. But as you grew bigger, the pictures grew smaller. Eventually, words...
5. Same Hill, Different Day — A Daily Photo Project Scientists claim it takes hundreds of years and a couple of glaciers to transform a hill. For Paul Octavious, it took a little over 3...

Want more?
Photojojo covers the best photo projects,
DIY ideas, and gear, twice a week.

Subscribe by Email We solemnly swear: "No spam, not ever"

or, Grab our RSS → What's RSS? | How do I use it?