Corinne Day was a self-taught photographer, best known for taking a candid, hard-hitting approach to the medium. Her work for The Face magazine in the early 1990s helped propel the career of a young Kate Moss. Her photographs introduced a new grunge aesthetic to fashion photography that was in stark contrast to the glamorous images that dominated the world of fashion in the 1980s. Day challenged the conventions of the time with her daring and provocative work and she was often accused of glamourising drug use and anorexia. Retreating away from the fashion world in the late 1990s, Day continued to work as a documentary photographer until her untimely death in 2010.

This photograph was taken from Day’s seven year long personal project Diary. Published in 200o, Diary is a bleak but honest look at Day’s life and friends. Here, Day captures the model Georgina Cooper in an awkward and uncomfortable looking pose. As she kneels on the soiled carpet of a dingy looking room, we see that the soles of her feet are dirty. Rather than trying to glamorise the fashion scene, Day was more interested in showing its gritty side and the reality of the world in which she and her friends occupied.