- April 19, 2024
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Ed Siarkowicz won his first camera for selling a large amount of goods for the Boy Scouts. It was a Kodak Kodamatic, and it worked on 110 mm film. He brought the camera everywhere, but eventually it got lost.
Fifteen years later, he went to visit his parents in his childhood home and was tasked with cleaning out the guest room closet. Tucked away in the corner, was the Kodamatic.
There were three exposed shots on the film, so he took it to a photo mat for developing. A couple hours later, he picked up his photos and stared back at three selfies of his teenage self.
“It was very surreal,” he said while sitting in the gallery at Ocean Books and Art.
Siarkowicz will show his photographic imagery at the gallery July 16 through Aug. 13 in his show, “Fantastic Flagler.”
The show is centered around an image of a Flagler Beach sunrise that appeared as the cover of the Flagler County Chamber’s Fantastic Flagler magazine. The purpose of the show is to make people realize the hidden treasures of Flagler County.
“A lot of these places people don’t know about,” he said motioning to a photograph of a lake nestled behind Town Center. “You realize that you don’t have to go far; we have such a treasure trove of stuff here.”
While Siarkowicz loves the dramatic water and clouds in his nature photography, street photography is slowly becoming one of his favorites, and he has a growing portfolio of people shots.
“I was solely focused on the environment,” Siarkowicz said. “If people got into my shot, it was an annoyance at first. But after having several shots like that, I started to see a value. I got bold and started finding a person and using them.”
His inspiration, he said, comes from God’s timing, quoting Ansel Adams, who said, “Sometimes I arrive just when God’s ready to have someone click the shutter.”
“For me, being the sole witness to a spiritually meaningful event and then capturing it, and displaying it, and making it touch people’s lives, that’s the greatest enjoyment.”
Siarkowicz said his grandmother is also one of his biggest inspirations, always walking around with a spring-wound 8mm video camera. When she died, she left him with all the family negatives, spanning from 1906 to 2000. It took eight months for him to convert the 3,500 negatives into positives for the rest of the family.
“For me, in a way it’s a legacy of carrying on what she did,” Siarkowicz said. “Even though she never did anything artistic, it’s neat to see I’m coming full circle to that point of capturing people instead of just places and things.”
IF YOU GO:
What: “Fantastic Flagler” photography show
When: Show runs July 16 through August 13 with an opening reception 2-6 p.m. Sunday, July 20
Where: Ocean Books and Art, 200 S. Oceanshore Blvd., Flagler Beach
