Tickets sold out within hours. The AI conference at the Just Join IT offices started at 4:45 pm and ran into the evening, finishing with networking and pizza. The organiser needed coverage of all of it: the stage, the audience and the conversations on the sidelines.
On 1 April 2026 I photographed the Kozieł i Przyjaciele: Storytelling AI conference in Warsaw. Kamil Kozieł brought well-known speakers and practitioners on stage, among them Artur Kurasiński and Michał Sadowski. The room was full, and everyone else watched a free stream.
What happened
The programme moved through several formats and each one called for different photos.
Solo talks are reportage work: the speaker, the slide and the reaction of the room in a single frame. The slides were part of the story here, so I watched for the moments when the screen and the speaker gesture came together.
On-stage conversations are photographed differently: close in, on a longer lens, at the moment of an exchange. Plus the reactions of the audience, because after the event the organiser needs not only the stage, but proof that the room was alive.
In the evening the room turned into a networking space: greetings, handshakes, conversations at the bar and a disco ball under the ceiling. This part produces the material that sells the next edition best.
What I watched for
An office on a high floor has one bonus that no conference hall can match: Warsaw outside the windows. I took a few frames through the glass, over the heads of the audience, with the dome and the cranes in the background. Photos like these give the coverage a sense of place.
I photographed more than the stage: badges at the entrance, partner branding, catering, details of the space. Marketing will look for photos for social media, partners for their presence, and speakers for their own talks.
I worked alone and discreetly. Nobody had to show me where the stage was or who was about to step up to the microphone.
The result
From about 4 hours of the event I delivered over 600 finished photos. The reaction of the organiser after receiving the gallery: „Dzięki, mega zdjęcia!!!”.
