Words and Photography by Nadine Wilmanns
Southend-on-Sea beach
Southend tide on film
“Time and tide wait for no man.”
(poet and writer Geoffrey Chaucer)
Visiting Southend-on-Sea during the hottest day in June seemed like the perfect excuse to load up some fresh film and head to the coast. My plan was simple: make the most of the heatwave, take a quick, refreshing swim, and capture the classic British summer on camera.
However, as anyone more familiar with the Essex coast knows, the Southend tide has a personality of its own.
Arriving at the beach, I quickly realized a deep-water swim was off the table. The tide recedes so drastically here that the ocean seemed to stretch out into the horizon. Instead of swimming, I ended up on a unique, beautiful journey—walking for over half an hour straight out into the sea with the water barely covering my knees.
While it wasn’t the seaside dip I anticipated, the vast beach desert and the people walking deep into the low tide sea turned out to be an absolute dream for documentary film photography.
Analogue Films
When shooting documentary, editorial, or private projects on film, the shoot is one thing—but the best and most exciting part is getting the scans back from the lab.
I’m so happy that I found the amazing Analogue Films Ltd in London. Their scans are beautiful—no wonder there is often a queue outside the shop! They are located just off Brick Lane right where my boyfriend works, so I can easily have him drop off film or pick up negatives if I can’t make it there myself.
Occasionally, I’ve had to drop rolls off at other labs when I was outside of London and needed the images back quickly, but the results usually left me disappointed with the scan quality and color profiles.
Now, I prefer patience over speed. If I’m traveling, I hold onto my film until I’m back in London. Finding a lab that consistently delivers high-quality film scans is rare, and the results from this heatwave series are exactly why I keep going back.
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