Summer was fun, wasn't it. That brief period in which we could comfortably eat lunch outside and complain about sweating more than usual. A justification for wearing shorts in public and spending entire Saturdays getting slowly drunk in parks on increasingly warm cans of Żywiec. A chance to bathe our bodies in the cold, dirty water of any one of the UK's "wild swimming" spots.One of those spots is Shadwell Basin, a little body of water off the Thames, between Wapping and Limehouse in east London. Unlike, say, the Hampstead Heath ponds, or the sea in Brighton, Tynemouth or Crosby, you're technically not allowed to swim in the Shadwell, but people obviously do. This summer, they came in their droves every time the sun came out, blue bags of tins and meal-deals in hand.
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Before you're properly subjected to grey skies and rain again, remind yourself of what once was with photographer Riccardo Raspa's portrait series from the banks of Shadwell.
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