The Assembly

Lake Kerkini, Greece 2021

Pelicans gather without signal. One lands, then three more, then twenty. Then stillness, then movement no one started. I have watched this shape form and break many times at Kerkini. On this morning the group pulled tight in shallow water, wings half open, beaks raised. The frame looks chaotic at first. It is not. There is a logic to it that only the birds understand.

I have been photographing this lake across multiple winters, returning to the same fishermen, the same boat, the same birds. That return is what makes the work. A photograph like this does not come from a single trip — it comes from years of watching a group of pelicans form, break, and form again, and being there the morning the arrangement is finally worth a frame. The Kingdom of Pelicans is built from those mornings.