It’s the image that Veronica Moon is both most famous for and the one that, in effect, ended her career.

Leonie Barratt is sitting in a chair; her eyes are half closed, and her mouth is half smiling. The camera captures her from the waist up, and a bookcase is visible, blurred, in the background. In contrast, Barratt’s face is sharp, with lines around her mouth clearly visible, and shadows beneath her brows and chin. It’s an honest portrait; there’s no soft focus, no flattering light. To the casual glance it looks as though she is lost in thought. But actually, she has died, seconds before the photograph was taken.

This image could be considered as a lesson in how photography works. We often say that ‘the camera never lies’ but at the same time, we see how much the viewer’s perspective brings to an image. If you don’t know that Barratt has just died, she seems at rest. The moment you are told that she passed away moments before, it’s all you can see.

The Observer, the publication which had commissioned the portrait from Moon, used this image on the cover with the line ‘The Death of Radical Feminism?’ At the time, the magazine’s editors insisted that they did not know the photograph was taken post-mortem, although the news of Barratt’s death was, by then, public. Moon was vilified in the press and within the women’s movement for what was seen as a betrayal – in 1984, the world was much less used to the frank images of death that we now encounter so frequently, and without comment, more than thirty years on.

Moon disappeared completely for a time after the publication of this image. When she did reappear, in 1989, it was as a lecturer in photography at Roehampton College (now University). She taught there until she retired in 2005, but she never published a photograph again.

You can also view the contact sheet from which the cover image was taken. This has never been made available to the public before. The cover image is the third-to-last image; in the next frame Barratt’s head is slumping to the side, and the final shot on the roll is a skewed image of a doorway.

Barratt’s sister was vociferous about the lack of life-saving help that Leonie received, at the time.

Veronica Moon has never spoken publicly about what happened.

In 1984:

• The halfpenny was withdrawn from circulation

• It was a year since the appointment of the first female Lord Mayor of London

• Torvill and Dean won a gold medal for ice skating at the Winter Olympics

• The Miners’ Strike began, and Women Against Pit Closures was formed

• The Thames Barrier was opened

• The Provisional IRA bombed the Brighton hotel where the Conservative Cabinet was staying, resulting in five deaths and several serious injuries

• Margaret Thatcher was still Prime Minister