Corinne Day cultivated an aesthetic unflinchingly candid. Often provocative, always poignant, her documentary style of photography blurred boundaries to such an extent that it is impossible to dissect the staged from real.

She shot what she saw: friends playing couture fancy dress, dossing in distressed flats, skinny-dipping in lakes – maintaining their realism transient memories became tangible moments – perfectly in tune with the post-rave counterculture of the time.

Since sadly passing away in 2010, her legacy endures and is celebrated in new book May The Circle Remain Unbroken, out today via Mörel Books. Following last year’s exhibition of the same name this evocative compilation of work, collated by her husband Mark Szaszy, showcases some of Day’s earliest and most personal photography, documenting the people, friendships and memories which came to define her career.

Take the “glorious, pink […] neon from Chung King Mansions in Hong Kong”, where Day stayed with Szaszy in 1987, as Szaszy described a particular shade of light in our interview last year, burned into the photographer’s memory and remaining a consistent aspect of her work onwards. For while Day’s most widely known journey involves her work for magazines like The Face in the 90s (and, of course, in being credited for launching Kate Moss’ career), it’s the quiet intimacy of such memories and experiences – a friend sleeping, expiring fag in hand; the light in a grungy hotel room – that shape the style of the images in this book. Buy and treasure.

‘May the Circle Remain Unbroken’ is published by Mörel Books, and is available in stores from today, Thursday 28th August