Kerkini ~ The Colours We Would Have Shared

On 27 December 2025, two days after Christmas, Melina and I went to Lake Kerkini with Giannis, an old school friend, his wife and their son. The plan was simple: a walk by the lake, then lunch. More friends and family would meet us there.

The weather looked good, so we decided to make a day of it. This time, I packed my cameras, a couple of lenses and the drone. I had stopped taking them along very often. There would be a lake to photograph, and a little time with my daughter.

01 / A LITTLE WINTER SUN

We arrived around 11:00am or 12:00pm, giving the sun a chance to warm things up. It was still properly cold. The damp air coming off the lake found its way through me almost immediately, but around us there were greens, yellows and snow on the nearby mountain. Winter with a little autumn still left in it.

We started with coffee while the children ran around together. Apart from Giannis and a familiar face or two, I hardly knew anyone. Still, it felt good to be there: out with people, with lunch ahead of us and no particularly complicated plan. An ordinary outing, and something I had been doing far too little of.

It felt like stepping out of my shell again. I had shown Melina photographs of the place before we left. Now we were there, with a little sunshine and an afternoon to spend.

02 / OUR HOUR BY THE WATER

After a while, Melina and I walked down from the café to the small harbour. Boats were waiting to take visitors out on the lake, but we stayed on shore. An hour on the water sounded a little too cold for me. We walked towards the end of the jetty instead, collecting whatever warmth the sun could offer.

I had brought my Sony Zeiss 85mm lens for portraits, along with a telephoto lens. Melina pulled a face, stuck her tongue out, and gave me a few photographs I loved. I do not like directing her too much. Sometimes she wants to be photographed, sometimes she does not. The walk comes first.

She also had a little turn flying the drone. I am always hesitant about using it around people, and even more so somewhere alive with birds and wildlife. I wanted a few views from above, with care for the place we had come to enjoy. Mostly, I remember the two of us having that hour together. One day I will teach her to take photographs of me with the good camera, too.

03 / FINDING THE FRAME AGAIN

At first, I felt a little rusty. I was used to photographing the Austrian mountains, where a small turn of the camera could give me an entirely different composition. I was still learning how to look at the Greek landscape, still unsure sometimes what I was searching for.

But framing a photograph is a little like riding a bicycle. Once I started looking, some of it came back intuitively. I have always been more spontaneous than methodical with a camera. A few frames that felt right were enough to remind me how much I had missed it.

04 / THE COLOURS ON THE WAY HOME

Lunch was at Evora in Makrynitsa. Good food, a lovely place and a large courtyard where the children could carry on playing. It was an easy afternoon with the group. Yet the part of the day that stayed with me most began after we left.

The route home took us along a road I had never used, towards Doirani and through villages before heading back down towards Thessaloniki. The sun had set. Its colours were still spread across the sky, slowly fading as the long, straight road carried us on. Melina was asleep in the back, completely worn out from playing and eating. My own music was playing, those warm, jazzy tracks that seemed to belong to the view.

I kept thinking how much Verena would have loved it. Sunsets were her thing. Those colours, that drive, the chance to be there together. It was a wish I could not fulfil, and one that returns in small ways, consciously and otherwise. Home, for me, is the people. Even here, where I grew up, that feeling has not always been easy to find.

The empty seat beside me made itself felt. I was used to being a family in the car: our daughter behind us, the two of us in front, talking or quietly watching the world go by. There were tears on that drive. The road, the music and the fading light gave the feeling room to come through. It lasted much longer in my mind than any photograph could hold.

At home, I carried Melina inside with the backpack on my back and her asleep in my arms. I laid her in bed, changed her, and she carried on sleeping. I stayed awake for a few hours, letting the intensity of the drive settle while I edited the photographs. For once, they did not spend weeks waiting on a memory card. We were back in our own little routine.