Corinne Day’s posthumous exhibit May The Circle Remain Unbroken is a glorious documentation of friendship, youth and self-expression. Day, who passed away in 2010, has a legacy as one of the world’s most influential fashion photographers, having defined the neo-realist photography movement of the 90s. Celebrating the show at London’s Gimpel Fils gallery, we spoke to Day’s husband Mark Szaszy about their life together, being overwhelmed by the neons of Asia and Corinne’s emergence as an artist that gave voice to a generation.

Thomas Gorton: Yourself and Corinne met on a train in Tokyo and spent just two weeks together before parting for two years. What do you remember of that fortnight and what were your initial impressions of her?

Mark Szaszy: I had been looking at the top half of her on the train and then when she got off I saw the rest. She was wearing this beautiful, white, flowing dress with high top Doc Martens on which just looked so cool. I felt like I had to catch up with her and talk to her. I had Doc Martens on too so that’s how things started. In Japan they call foreigners ‘gaijins’, when you’re working over there you tend to gravitate towards other gaijins.

We walked for a long time from the train station, through small towns getting to know each other. She had a warmth to her, a beautiful smile. Eventually we both stopped outside the same apartment block and realised that we were living in the same building. At the time I was living with three other male models and I was having a real molestation issue that was getting really out of hand, I was being abused by them. I told her about it and she just said ‘move in with me’. So after having known her for a couple of hours I agreed to move in with her. I slept on the sofa, we drank a lot of vodka, did a lot of cooking and had a great time. After two weeks she got a call from her agency for a big job in California and so she left. We kept in touch via postcards from 85-87. At that time I didn’t really feel like modelling any more, I really missed her.

TG: How important do you think those formative years spent travelling in South East Asia were to her language many years later? Does it make you proud that you showed her how to use a camera and it progressed so far?

MS: Obviously I’m very proud that I was able to do that. When you’re relaxed and happy together, there’s a certain flow that takes place, things just happen. We had a camera that took two shots per 35mm frame, I’d take one and she’d take the next, we’d go one each. It was really good fun.

Corinne’s story is that she wanted to impress me with her ability to take photographs. I remember she took one of me that clarified how much talent she had. I was on top of a hill and the composition of this black and white photo looked just like something out of the 1930s or 40s. She was still messing around then, but it became evident to me that she had a special talent.

Corinne was very practical; she wanted me to go back and model in Tokyo with her but my portfolio was all me as a shaven headed guy and I’d grown my hair out by then. Corinne took all the photos for my new portfolio and off we went. We went back to Japan, made some good money and blew a lot of it on camera equipment. It was 1987 now and that year we spent Christmas in Thailand together, stopping off at Hong Kong beforehand. We were blown away visually by this part of Asia. We were staying in Chung King Mansions, a place where green, peppermint spaceships led the way to our room and the whole of the outside was bathed in this glorious, pink neon. I remember we got into our room; it was dingy and dirty, or grungy – if the word had been invented, but the light that came in through the window was breathtaking, this pink neon from outside that bathed the entire room in its light. I believe that that light, that colour, stayed in Corinne’s creative consciousness for the rest of her life. We were grading a picture for the exhibition and we just couldn’t get the colour right. It was a picture of Tara [St Hill, a friend of Corinne’s], she had lit up a fag and fallen asleep. Then we realised that the colour was a red lamp out of shot. That turned up in a lot of her work, people thought it was a nod to Soho and prostitutes, an influence from that scene, but I know it was that neon from Chung King Mansions in Hong Kong.

We were so young and so happy in that room, just fooling around, taking photographs. One of them ended up in Diary [Day’s book, published in 2000]. Eventually though, there came a point when Corinne stopped letting me take photographs. At first I was pissed off, but she’d come that far.

TG: There must have been inevitable emotional obstacles to overcome when going through the work of someone that you loved so much. Were there times when you felt like you didn’t want to do it anymore?

MS: There were times when Tara and I just broke down, cried and held each other. We’d take walks in the park to clear our heads. At times it was very difficult. But Corinne was extremely determined, so is Tara and I’m a little bit like that too. The joy only came finally, when I was standing in the gallery on the opening night and there was so much love in the room, such a tangible energy. It was like an amazing drug, like drugs used to be in the 90s before they started cutting them with all sorts of shit.

TG: Is there a photo in the exhibition that you think perfectly captures Corinne’s artistic ambitions and integrity?

MS: That’s such a difficult question to answer and I’d have to say that the answer is no. Corinne didn’t have children, she had photos and you love all of your children equally, you don’t have a favourite. That’s how it was for Corinne.

TG: I was fascinated by George [a friend of Corinne and Mark’s] in the exhibition. He seemed to embody such youthfulness and freedom. Where is he now?

MS: Good question. Where is George? When I first met George he gave me a knife that I still have. He was a chef at the time. Corinne loved George, I loved George, everybody did. He was such a natural guy. He came from somewhere out of the city, maybe the countryside. He was low spoken, reserved, gentle, quiet, almost shy, as well as being stunning to look at. I think him and Rose had a very intense connection. George was definitely masculine but there’s a great photo of him in the exhibition wearing stilettos and another of him caked in make up dressed as a vampire with french fries for fangs. Corinne was extremely interested in toying with sexuality and that side of things was very fluid for her. For instance, she loved to look at Rose as a boy, or dress George up as a girl. I’d love George to see the exhibition but I don’t know where he is or what he’s doing. He was a model for a while but I think he got bored of it.

TG: Was Corinne moved at all by the furore that surrounded the Kate Moss cover for Vogue in 1993? Did she ever doubt herself?

MS: Corinne just thought that they were all making a fuss over nothing. It amused her just because it was so pathetic. A young girl, in her own home, possibly experimenting with lingerie, exploring her sexuality. That’s completely natural, it’s based on nothing but reality. The press projected their own issues and called it pornography but there was nothing perverted about it. Princess Diana’s psychiatrist labelled those photos as ‘for paedophiles’. It’s just a girl being young and normal, are we so confused now that we can’t accept that? There was nothing lewd about it, Corinne was just having a laugh.

TG: Corinne once said that she asked Kate Moss to ‘talk about a serious subject and this revealed her true feelings’. Having photographed a lot of icons, was this approach of investigating the subject’s deepest feelings something that she always did in order to get the best results?

MS: She was just very down to earth with people. She always made people feel good. Corinne was very caring and natural, if somebody didn’t feel right she always said ‘fuck the shoot’ and made sure she talked to that person. With regards to Kate, they didn’t work together for a while because Kate’s agent instructed her not to work with Corinne again. She was deemed detrimental to Kate’s career, which was a pretty laughable suggestion. Because she was such a good photographer she just moved over to musicians and loved working with her favourite bands. Corinne loved music and this change of direction only heightened her credibility and reputation. Vogue were trying to get into rock ‘n’ roll when it was cool in the 90s and when they looked at who was doing it they realised it was Corinne. They just thought ‘oh shit, maybe we’d better work with her again’. Corinne just followed her instinct and what she loved.

TG: Do you remember her diagnosis?

MS: Yeah, she was in New York in 1996, she was on tour with the band Pusherman. Whenever Corinne was taking photos of people she would always engage with whatever lifestyle they were leading, so she was doing quite a lot of drugs at that time, without ever having an addiction to anything. She just felt that taking part in their ways of life ensured that everybody was relaxed and she could get the best results.

She had an epileptic fit, caused by the tumour. Incredibly when it started happening she threw her camera straight to Barton, Rachel McClean’s boyfriend and said ‘you need to photograph this’. I’ve got photos of her having a fit all the way into the ambulance. They got the drift that she was some hotshot photographer and she wandered around the hospital taking photos of everything in there, there are some incredible shots of the Bellevue hospital in New York, all the people in there, all with her.

Then we came back to London and Corinne was in Whitechapel Hospital, a horrible, scary place. Five days after brain surgery we were wearing party hats at her Nan’s house, it just proves how Corinne always remained so strong. We were going to a New Year’s Eve party with the band Pusherman and it just reminded me of that David Bowie song Diamond Dogs – ‘when they pulled you out of the oxygen tent, you asked for the latest party’. Corinne was living that lyric.

Whenever I get down about anything, I look at Corinne’s photos of Bellevue and Whitechapel and I realise how lucky I am. I’m healthy, I’ve travelled, I’ve loved and been loved. Photographs like these can only make people realise what they have.

TG: What do you think she would say if she could see May The Circle Remain Unbroken?

MS: Oh God, your guess is as good as mine. I don’t know. She’d probably walk around smiling. I can imagine her saying ‘I love that’ or ‘I love that person’. Who knows? It’s a hard thing to imagine.

Corinne Day: May The Circle Remain Unbroken exhibits until 23rd November 2013 at Gimpel Fils, 30 Davies Street, London W1K 4NB. Mark Szaszy’s short film about the anti-war photographers Robert Capa and Gerda Taro, soundtracked by Alt-J, also features in the exhibition, as an homage from himself and Corinne to Capa and Taro.