Jade Carr-Daley was two weeks into her photography course when she found out she was pregnant. Her ongoing project documents her transition from student to caregiver
When Jade Carr-Daley arrived at the University of the West of England for a MA in photography in autumn 2021, she intended to start a project exploring her British-Jamaican heritage. Two weeks into her first academic term, she received the unexpected news that she was pregnant, and a new photographic focus came into view.
“Suddenly I had to step into the caregiving role, to be there for someone other than myself,” Carr-Daley says. Under instruction from her tutors to photograph prolifically, she began making images of all aspects of her pregnancy, from doctors’ appointments and shots of her partner to intimate close-ups of herself and him.
The result is Not Ready Not Steady GO!, an ongoing series in which Carr-Daley reconciles her own youth with the caregiving expectation of motherhood: “to become more comfortable in my new role,” she explains. The mostly black-and-white photographs are diaristic and intimate, combining the familiar motifs of pregnancy – breast pumps, ultrasound scans – with the distinct vulnerability she felt as a young mother balancing family and university.