Teodoras Biliūnas considers the starting point for his Kaunas 2022 adventure to be the day the city won the ECoC title, 29 March 2017, when he photographed the anticipation of the decision and the moments of joy in the Town Hall Square.

Out of all events he had seen in Kaunas 2022 program throughout the years he was most impressed by the year-long exhibition of William Kentridge, a Litvak artist from PAR. ‘I would say it was stronger than all the others put together,’ says the Kaunasian. And what is the most impressive person whose portrait Teodoras had to create? ‘It’s hard to surprise me, but I have to say that it was interesting to work with Yoko Ono’s curator Jon Hendricks, who was organizing the exhibition at the Kaunas Picture Gallery - i

Andrius Aleksandravičius was one of the first to hop on board - his shots of Kaunas were used in the project’s application, submitted in the spring of 2016. His expressive photographs added to the success of the city’s core ideas as a future European Capital of Culture (ECoC) in 2022.

‘My shots were also used for the first posts on the Kaunas 2022 Instagram account,’ recalls the photographer, much appreciated for his bird’s-eye views of Kaunas city and Kaunas district. Andrius estimates that in almost six years, he managed to attend over 200 events of the program, which he both photographed and filmed with the help of a drone. The most intense year for him was 2021, with 76 captured events.

Gražvydas Jovaiša, who joined the team of photo wizards at the latest, shares his ‘baptism’ memory. ‘During my first day working with Kaunas 2022, I photographed the ‘Let’s Celebrate the River’ event, during which people sailed down the Nemunas and Neris rivers in various, even self-made, water vehicles.
 
From Panemunė beach to Žemieji Šančiai beach, we sailed in a large canoe with a capacity of about 20 people, with musicians on board. Live music is playing, a good mood is in the air, I’m taking pictures, and everything looks just amazing, but a few hundred meters away, we can see the Panemunė Bridge and its columns! Suddenly there was a scream, and I turned and saw that our wooden boat was about to hit a column. I thought we were going to capsize; the rescue plan was already in my mind... there was a ‘boom’, and then a lot of stress as the boat seemed to have broken in half, but there was enough time to reach the shore and keep everybody dry!’