Preview
Upload Date
3-25-2025
Department
Classics
Label Text
A famous crack runs along the metal on one side. On the other photographed side, an elk appears over an inscription with the city and year, Philadelphia 1907. Does either the crack or the sticker ring a bell for you? These two aspects set the item in a specific time and place. It is a keepsake for anyone there at that time.
I was able to make the Elks sticker bolder, without affecting the darker parts of the image, by using a selective editing mask in Camera Raw. I highlighted this because it became most interesting to me once I realized the object was not an exact replica of the Liberty Bell. The crack and the elk are on adjacent sides of the bell so photography allowed me to display both sides straight on, where a traditional display may have limited viewers to just one angle.
The photos invoke the motion of the heavy clapper swinging against the edge to show this is a functional bell.
The bell is small enough that you could ring it with one hand, but it envelopes a big event in history. Can you find out what event this bell is a keepsake for?
Camera Settings: Aperture
F20
Camera Settings: Shutter Speed
0"5
Camera Settings: ISO
160
Lighting
Three overhead and two front lights at full brightness.
Photoshop Adjustments
Color adjustment. Enhanced color of elk and words. Removed evidence of the props that held up the bell using eyedropper and brush tools. Using mask and fill I added a solid black background.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.
Found in
ADC study collections
