With Instagram and virtually every other photographer shooting from the hip these days, it’s easy to forget that 20 years ago, that kind of snapshot photography was entirely unacceptable in a commercial context. With pioneers in casual snaps for high end fashion such as Juergen Teller, Wolfgang Tillmans and Terry Richardson having ascended to super stardom, one photographer who was easily just as influential tends to be forgotten a little, and that is Corinne Day.
While things had already got a little quiet around her in the ’00s, Corinne Day was at the very cutting edge of fashion photography in the 1990s, her rise to the top of British fashion magazines in step with her close friend Kate Moss, who she photographed frequently. Always close to the streets and shooting in that semi-autobiographical way that has become so self-evident nowadays, Corinne Day’s photographs document a moment in Britain’s youth culture that spawned a generation that defines the way we produce and consume culture to a significant extent. Corinne Day sadly passed away in 2010, aged 48.
Originally announced for January 2013, our friends at Morel Books finally published the first monograph after her death, May the Circle Remain Unbroken. Read a great little interview of Corinne Day’ friend and agent Susie Babchick describing a very specific moment in the history of London over at It’s Nice That.
Photographs by Corinne Day
