Thaine, 12, Maude Crosse Preparatory, from the series Uniform, 2019
" I go to church every Sunday morning at 10 o’clock. The pastor prays for me. What do I pray for? For the country to be better. For people who are sick. And for safety when I ride my motorcycle to the beach.”
January 16, 2023
Kacey Jeffers was born in 1988 on the small Caribbean island of Nevis, and he came to photography through work in the fashion industry in London and New York City. In 2018 he returned to Nevis and describes feeling disconnected from his former life there. His Uniform series began at that time as a kind of youthful self portrait: he visited schools on the island where he met students and photographed them wearing their school uniforms, like the one he once wore. His background in fashion photography is visible in his emphasis on the spiffy appearance of the student’s clothes—the loosely knotted tie in this photo looks straight out of a fashion shoot—and the spirit of pride and self possession that the uniforms seem to bring out in the children.
Jeffers observes: “Making the photographs and interviewing the students reconnected me with my inner child. I also realized that at the foundation of my existence was an absence of seeing people who looked like me visually represented in relatable ways…I wanted to challenge what a portrait of a ‘child’ could look like. I wanted to present them as fully embodied human beings with complexity and interiority.”
Jeffers demonstrates how inner life and individuality aren't so much expressed by what is worn, but how a person wears it—in this soulful portrait Thaine's aspirational spirit is expressed through his whole person.
