Andrea panaligan
Andrea is a 19-year-old writer, photographer, and behavioral sciences student from the Philippines. Her work usually revolves around coming of age and how adolescence is simultaneously nothing and everything. She is never not talking about films—her favorite is Xavier Dolan’s Mommy, and she will always be angry at the lack of Oscar nominations for Robin Campillo’s BPM. Her other passions include feminism, mental health, ideas of identity and the process of selfhood, and YA lit. There is nothing more she wants in the world than for you, reader, to start watching Fleabag.
Laila Aissaoui
Laila is a 20-year-old-photographer and collage maker from London. Her work is based on young girls and their experiences with the influence of the 60s and 90s. She focuses on fashion and coming of age and is always being influenced by movies like “Clueless”. You will usually find her working on collages and reminiscing about her childhood or teenage years (even though they were not that long ago). Her other interests include reading YA novels, society’s pressures on young people, and mental health.
Hadiyyah kuma
Hadiyyah is a fiction writer, poet, and freelancer from Toronto, Ontario. She is a lifestyle intern at Society19 and a writer at Guided Magazine. She is also the EIC of Double-Take Mag. She’s curated a playlist of restaurant sounds because she is soothed by indiscernible chatter.
Connect with Hadiyyah on Instagram, Twitter, and visit her portfolio.
Tyler Bey
Tyler Bey is a 17-year-old Atlanta based poet and creative writer. His work is often deeply imaginative with nostalgic imagery and metaphors that question masculinity, especially for black men. His other interests include acting, directing and fashion. In his free time he enjoys listening to music and watching hair tutorial videos.
Connect with Tyler on Instagram.
Zuleika Mari
Zuleika Mari is an 18 year old self-taught graphic designer and illustrator. She’s from the Philippines, but she is now based in Los Angeles California. Her illustrations are mostly based on films, pop culture, and 60s-80s bands. She watches at least 15+ movies each month and can rewatch Alex Garland’s “Ex Machina” over and over again and would never get tired of it. (She would call that film the best sci-fi movie of the decade). She’s also a proud feminist and thinks that girls should stand up for themselves and be comfortable and confident in their own skin. Her other interests are fashion, music and cats. (Yes, she love cats!!)
Connect with Zuleika on socials here.
Valentin Espey-davis
Valentin is a 17 year old poet, essayist, and photographer presently located in North New Jersey (but they lived in Missouri for 16 years and remain a Midwesterner at heart.) Their work often studies vulnerability, surreality, and nostalgia especially in relation to LGBT experiences. Some of their influences include Lorde, Marina Abramović, and Kurt Vonnegut. In their free time they enjoying reviewing films on letterboxd, visiting the ocean, and studying leftist theory.
Connect with Valentin on Instagram.
Juliana Denrich
As a New Yorker, Juliana is obsessed with finding the intersections of her passions, interests and concerns. Think social media, empathy, fashion, technology, human rights, poetry, galaxies, purpose, art and the economy. She uses these lists to find niches that have potential for scale and impact. She is a poet, storyteller, and amateur graphic designer who works to connect herself and others to humanity. As a first-generation Latina her work can be heavy on equality, heart-ache, and female empowerment. She is constantly finding inspiration in the stars, ocean, and David Byrne.
Kari Trail
Kari Trail is a 35mm film enthusiast, writer, and artist from California who has a soft spot for zines and other methods of print. Her work focuses on dreams and what it feels like to be stuck inside your head. Through photos and poems, she tries to better understand emotions and their purpose. She’s currently making her own magazine called Verses to create a platform for people of diverse backgrounds.
Kayla Spaar
Kayla is a concert photographer originally from Baltimore, Maryland, and currently based out of Denver, Colorado. She is inspired by the passion and energy surrounding the live music environment. She loves witnessing the raw emotions of people totally lost in the moment at a concert, oblivious to everything except what the music, artists, and crowd are causing them to feel. She strives to find the beauty in everyday life in the city, in the wild, and in those around her. Some of her other interests include exploring 35mm film, true crime, and contemporary surrealist art.
Layan Dajani
Layan is a 19-year-old filmmaking student, self-taught graphic designer, and video editor from Saudi Arabia. Her work varies from dreamy to dark and is mainly for her to express her emotions. She is heavily inspired by Vincent van Gogh and Federico Fellini. Her other passions include reading self-development books and watching modern documentaries. Most of the time you will find her either creating posters while listening to music or working on a short film.
Connect with Layan on Instagram.
Emily Elvish
Emily Elvish is a 19-year-old writer, budding photographer and media student from Sydney. As an enthusiast of Sydney’s art, music and youth culture expression, her work usually documents the current challenges faced by adolescence in Australia. She loves nothing more than telling the stories of incredible people, and celebrating all the little things that make life beautiful. You'll usually be able to find her at a gig around Sydney, at an art show, trying (and failing) to cook, or at the beach. Her other interests include Thai food, feminist prose and angry girl music of the indie-rock persuasion.
Mina Johnson
Mina is a 18 year old singer/songwriter and music journalist originally from Los Angeles, CA and now based in Philadelphia, PA. Her writing is inspired by her favorite artists (Mac Miller, Phoebe Bridgers, and Lorde - to name a few), new music, and giving new artists a platform to share their music with the world. When she's not writing, you can find her going to concerts with friends, rewatching Lady Bird, or finding new restaurants to try. Her other interests include ramen, oddly specific Spotify playlists, and a good thrift shop find.
Sami Harris
Sami is a 22 year old writer residing in Los Angeles. Her work centers around the collective human experience as well as breaking down taboos and stigmas associated with it, and her main goal through her writing is to create solidarity with those who have had similar experiences. In addition to being a contributor for Uniquely Aligned, Sami is also the editor of Jawbreaker Zine. While writing is her first and forever love, she also is passionate about film photography, promoting the vegan lifestyle, and engaging in the local live music scene. When she isn't writing or pursuing her degree in communications, she can be found at a concert, trying out a new vegan recipe, or hanging out with her boyfriend, friends, family, or her four cats.
Samara Chaplain
Samara is a 16-year-old graphic designer, filmmaker, photographer, and idea-person from Hong Kong. She spends her free time watching films (contrary to the book in her hand), napping with her cat, and trying to find social commentary in episodes of iCarly. She also thinks she's in love with Bo Burnham, and definitely is with Eighth Grade. She is inspired by everything around her; some of which include social justice, art in all mediums, and friends. Samara hopes to make a difference in the world, no matter how small it is perceived.
Connect with Samara on Instagram, visit her portfolio, or email her.
Sophia Moore
Sophia is a 17-year-old writer based in Los Angeles, California. She is an avid journalist and personal essayist, and beyond Uniquely Aligned, she writes for Lithium Magazine, Affinity Magazine, and Psychotropic Magazine, at current. Sophia enjoys writing about popular culture including, but not limited to, new music, movies, and TV shows, and the deeper impact they have on the life of teenagers. She also enjoys penning personal essays and lifestyle pieces. In her free time, Sophia can be found reading, partaking in debate and/or existential conversations, or hanging out with her dog, Daisy.
Connect with Sophia on Instagram, Twitter, and visit her portfolio.
Trent Trammell
Trent is a 19 year old photographer and videographer based in Atlanta, GA. His work is a visual aid to his imagination and evokes a vibrantly eclectic feeling. Trent takes great interest in fashion, portrait, and documentary photography. In his free-time he enjoys: bouldering, skating, playing guitar, and surfing the internet for inspiration and references.
Valeria Moreno
Valeria is a 19 year old Bolivian art school student based in Virginia. She is currently studying Photography and a minor in creative advertising. Her work ranges from film and digital photography and other alternative processes in the darkroom. Themes in her work range from intimacy, identity, nostalgia, childhood, and love. She is a Taurus and has an identical twin sister. In her free time, she likes to thrift, go on Twitter, listen to music and take naps.
Leah Blom
Leah is a 19 year-old self-taught photographer and aspiring filmmaker from Flower Mound, Texas. She is interested capturing the organic moments, experiences, and relationships of the present and understanding how they shape our lives through memory and nostalgia through time. Her photo style seems to replicate memories as if they were stills from a film in their vibrant and candid atmospheres, hence her interest in photo and film alike. Leah currently lives in Austin and attends the University of Texas at Austin where she studies studio art photography and radio-television-film. While the bulk of her portfolio is made up of film photography, she also shoots editorial fashion photography digitally with a student-ran Austin mag. Leah’s dream is to further cultivate her photography throughout her career by traveling and meeting new people in hopes of expanding her perspectives.
Aubrey Hutson
Aubrey is a 20-year-old writer and entrepreneur from Washington D.C., although she’s also lived in London and in Texas. Having built her life around the French joie de vivre, she’s constantly after what it means to be human. Her work has a tendency to reflect the human experience (as if anyone could even attempt such a thing), and she writes about life’s most intricate moments. Her creative spirit spilling into her unconventional prose, she is passionate about finding beauty in the wild and in the mundane. To document and remember how it feels to be completely alive. Whenever Aubrey’s not reading or writing or falling in love with characters in old movies, she’s running her own, online thrift shop, or perhaps by the ocean.
Connect with Aubrey on Instagram, Spotify, and visit her portfolio.
Alejandra Murcia
Alejandra is 20-year old self-taught graphic designer. She is Spanish currently studying communications in The Netherlands. Her visual works are diverse, conceptual and have a vintage touch! She also enjoys creating mix-media artworks inspired by modern artists like Basquiat. Creativity and self-development are key assets in her life. Her other interests are travelling, practicing yoga and laughing with her friends.
Connect with Alejandra on Instagram and visit her portfolio.
Ash Grover
Ash is a 19-year-old photographer from Salt Lake City, Utah. Her work centers around creating a space where she and others can find a home. Though she adores photographing close friends and family, self portraits are her forte. She is passionate about art and the connections it can create between people. Making new playlists and getting lost in the mountains is how she spends most of her time (though not usually at the same time). The purpose of her art is to create a space where others can find peace, even for just a moment.
Eden Anyabwile
Eden is a 20-year-old photographer and graphic designer studying Art and French on a wonderful little mountain top in southern Tennessee. Her work aims to capture the immediacy of a moment and the indiscernible emotion. She is your classic "jack of all trades, master of none" kind of gal and that's exactly how she likes it. When not artmaking, you can find her thrifting, napping, and exploring. Some of her favorite places are Grand Cayman (where she grew up), Auckland, Florence, and the Mongolian countryside. Next on her list is hopefully the PNW, Switzerland, and Arizona.
Connect with Eden on Instagram (art account) and visit her portfolio.
Amber Cottell
Amber is a 19-year-old illustrator and STEM student based in Melbourne, Australia. Her work features stupidly bright colours, a theme she happily incorporates into her decor too. She cites Keith Haring and Hiller Goodspeed as her favourite artists and biggest inspirations, having tattoos of both the artist’s work on her arms. She loves music, her entire life (almost) revolves around the music she’s loving, often incorporating pieces of it into her own work. She’d recommend Roy Blair’s Cat Heaven in a heartbeat, an album that perfectly summarizes her teen years as if she'd ghost wrote it.
Connect with Amber on Instagram.
Julia Lucey
Julia is a 17-year-old writer from Connecticut. She draws inspiration from her own thoughts (she specializes in overthinking), the ideas and stories of others, and really anything else that comes her way. She finds solace in seeing bits of herself in everyone else and aims to write pieces in which others can connect with her. Few things make her happier than bike rides to the beach, running into the ocean, having fashion shows in her bedroom, wandering around NYC, and discovering new music to obsess over.
Connect with Julia on Instagram.
Delaney Jaronik
Delaney is a 19-year-old writer based in Chicago, IL, where she attends school for computer science and philosophy. Her big aspirations in life include becoming an attorney and owning a large Doberman one day. Her writing is influenced by Sylvia Plath, her favorite philosophers, and the exhausting yet exhilarating spectrum of emotions experienced while growing up. You can find her living vicariously through coming of age movies, listening to Grimes, or roller skating along Lake Michigan.
Connect with Delaney on Instagram.
Sathya Chairez
Sathya is a 25 year old photographer, writer, psychologist and designer. Growing up under the umbrella of a multicultural household, she speaks Spanish, English and French and focused most of her research at Uni in Multicultural Studies. Through photography,she explores the mind and its different stages, combining her expertise in Social Psychology in every single one of her photo series. Sathya has a particularly soft spot for the nomadic lifestyle, having lived and studied in Paris for over 6 years. Her other interests include music, poetry and cooking (creating illustrated recipes is the newest addition to her routine).
Kiley Malloy
Kiley is an 18-year-old poet, essayist, and dancer from Pennsylvania. Her work often revolves around her family heritage, her passion for languages, and the way that movement and performance can impact our society. She loves: 80% cacao dark chocolate, music at a sensible volume, and opening her bedroom window when it rains. The carpet is always soaked, but it’s always worth it.
Connect with Kiley on Instagram.
Logan Simons
Logan is a 20-year-old photographer! She's originally from Seattle, but currently lives in New York City and attends Pratt Institute as a photography major. Her work often surrounds imagery of nature and emphasizes the mental and spiritual connections we have to it. Additionally, she deals with themes around adolescents, memory and nostalgia, and femininity. Almost all of Logan's work is shot in 35mm, 120mm, or 4X5 film. When she's not in the darkroom, Logan spends most of her time out in the city whether it be interning for photographers like Annie Leibovitz and Pamela Hanson, hanging with her friends at Coney Island, or going to museums with her boyfriend.
Connect with Logan on Instagram (photography account) and visit her website.
Shelby Edison
Shelby is a 17 year-old writer and spoken word poet based in Houston, Texas. She adores musing about her favorite books, films, and vintage aesthetics and writing comedy. When she’s not writing poems at coffee shops with friends or editing for her school’s newspaper, she can be found dancing on her violet roller skates, with her nose in a piece of classic literature, or talking about her all-time favorite movie, Megamind.
Sophia Tello
Sophia is a 17 year old photographer and creative writer from Austin, Texas. She spends a lot of time reading books and chilling with her dogs. Sophia started photography about a year ago and is continuing to progress each day. She also enjoys watching films such as Call Me By Your Name or My Girl. Sophia is currently working on improving her film photography skills that will open many doors within the photography world.
Gabriela Velasco
Gabriela is a 22 year old American-born Colombian currently based in London. She is a photographer, writer and big believer in radical vulnerability. Her work is largely centred around her interest in intimacy, nostalgia, modern love and how those intersect with the larger forces in our lives.
Connect with Gabriela on Instagram.
Mahirah Syed
Mahirah is a 19-year-old Social Work student that lives in Toronto, ON. She can also be found writing for AlwaysInAFunk. Most of her work revolves around mental health, identity and the relationship both of those topics have with our media and culture. She has a Leo sun, Capricorn moon and Pisces rising and loves talking about all things astrology. Can usually be found having some form of an existential crisis with a glass of wine in tow.
Abby Ouellette
Abby Ouellette (pronounced wool-ette) is a mixed-media Illustrator based in Boston, MA. She studied Illustration at Massachusetts College of Art and Design, is passionate about bright colors, glitter, and creating work that is exciting. She explores the concept of girlhood and coming of age through her illustrations, and brings a fun and nostalgic twist to them through imagery and material usage. She also runs an underground gallery called House of Venus from her apartment with her roommate and best friend Kaylee Hennessey. She can talk forever about her many plants, her dog Maggie, and her personal library of books.
Mia Longo
Mia is a bright, bubbly and enthusiastic 18 year old gal pal from Melbourne, Australia! As a Melbournian, she has grown up immersed in a bustling creative and artistic atmosphere, giving her a passion and strong love for all things photography, art, music and fashion related! She is currently studying in her final year of high school where she completes two design and art based portfolios, giving her the opportunity to practice combining all of her passions in her work. Interested in capturing raw, genuine and intimate moments within her youth, Mia uses every minute of spare time she has to hang out with her family and friends, attending concerts and gigs as well as digging out fresh creative corners of the world, snapping photos of all these things to capture their uniqueness, specialness and authenticity.
Connect with Mia on Instagram.
Sadie Lane
Sadie is a 19 year old writer based in a small, historic town on the border of England and Scotland. Her work explores culture, society, the arts and nostalgia; attempting to document life and the shared human experience. In her spare time, you will find Sadie composing music, taking photos of anything in front of her and drinking copious amounts of tea.
Turi Sioson
Turi is an 18 year old writer, poet, and student from Austin, Texas. Her work most often explores the smaller aspects in life as well as some good ol' fashioned longing. When she's not writing, she's editing for Pure Nowhere, reading, or playing Animal Crossing. Music is her one true addiction and she almost never stops listening to it. If she does, it's to hear the sounds of a typical Texas summer day.
Connect with Turi on Instagram (poetry account).
Isabella Balbi
Isabella is a 20 year old writer and illustrator from Los Angeles, currently studying Literature in the bay area. When she’s not writing satirical essays or spewing about media, she enjoys DJing at her college radio station, making collages, and watching coming of age movies. Her other interests include astrology, critical race and ethnic studies, and existentialist literature.
Connect with Isabella on Instagram.
Samantha Opalach
Samantha is a 15-year-old writer from Mansfield, Texas. Through her writing she hopes to inspire important discussions on topics like mental health, body positivity, equality, and other social issues. She’s obsessed with the coming of age genre and is desperately trying to get through her movie bucket list (153 movies and counting). In her free time she likes to upcycle her clothes, write poetry, watch musical bootlegs and commentary videos, learn new songs on the ukulele and piano, make obscure Spotify playlists, and rewatch Marriage Story a thousand times.
Riley Young
Riley is an 18 year old writer and journalist from Portland, Oregon. Through her writing, she attempts to pinpoint what it means to be human, in order to resonate with others. To convey this, she often writes on: the "teenage experience", the sentimental, the emotional, etc. Inspiration for such pieces stems from films, books, and life experiences — of all genres, that have impacted her in one way or another. When she's not writing, Riley spends her time propagating plants, watching the BBC adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, hanging out with friends/family, and pretending she's in a Greta Gerwig film.
Connect with Riley on Instagram.
Lauren Lee
Lauren is an 18-year-old graphic designer, photographer, writer, fashion lover, and eternal optimist, amongst other things. She is based in both New York City, where she is currently pursuing her undergraduate degree at Barnard College, and Penang Island, Malaysia, her hometown! Her design focuses on human connection, youth, and the intricacy of relationships. When she's not designing, you can find her talking to friends, making Spotify playlists, and grabbing cute drinks at small cafes.
Connect with Lauren on Instagram (photography account).
Mia Caputo
Mia is an 18 year old writer from Los Angeles, California. Her writing is what can be described as a diary style. She loves to write about films, LGBTQ+ experiences, and psychology. Most of her early expectations in life were formed around coming-of-age movies. Some of her favorite films being Booksmart, 20th Century Women, and Juno. In her free time, you will usually find her listening to SZA and writing songs. Some of her other interests include cats, reading memoirs, and taking care of her plants.
Connect with Mia on Instagram.
