There are few photographers to have got as up-close-and personal to the subjects in the eye of their lens as the sadly departed Corinne Day. Her documentary-style approach shook the fashion world to its core in the 90s and she is widely credited with creating the aesthetic that came to be known as 'heroin chic'. Over the course of the last twenty years Corinne effortlessly captured the zeitgeist: she documented the stripped-down aesthetic of the slacker generation; captured disarmingly honest portraits of her friends and family; and created stunningly beautiful imagery for high-end fashion magazines. Her iconic pictures of a 14-year-old Kate Moss catapulted her friend and muse into highest echelons of the fashion firmament (she was the first photographer to shoot Kate as a Vogue cover girl). Corinne's unique talent and engaging personality will be sadly missed by all of those who were lucky enough to have known her. The fact that she became so close to all of her subjects is testament to the fact she was a person of rare humanity, one of those creatures who can teach us something about ourselves with the simple click of a shutter. As she said in the foreword to her noughties exhibition Diary (The Photographers Gallery, 2000): "Good friends make you face the truth about yourself and you do the same for them, as painful, or as pleasurable, as the truth may be". Here we present an interview Jefferson Hack conducted with his friend for Dazed a decade ago, and a snapshot of the peerless photographer's truth.


 


Dazed and Confused, November 2000


George in the bath, 1994


My Bloody Knickers, 1994


DAY Tania colouring her hair, 1995


Tara Wales, 1997


Corinne at home, Brewer-Stre, 1999


Georgina at Tara's Streatham, 1995

All images courtesy of Gimpel Fils, London