“At lunchtime, the teens in my California suburban high school would gather outside in ‘the quad’ around the tree or bench where their friend/identity group would cluster.”
Cammie graduated from Ygnacio Valley High School in Concord, California in 1986. A first-generation Iranian-American artist born and raised in California. She holds a degree in photojournalism from San Francisco State University, where she also taught photography. In the mid-1980s, she took these pictures of her classmates, and reminds us what life was like back then:
“Are you looking for the goths? It’s that tree over there. The jocks who like to chew tobacco and talk about the game? Those guys are down there adjacent to the heavy metal stoners. The closeted lesbian volleyball players? Nerds? Cholos/Cholas? Punks and weirdos? Cheerleaders? There were so many groups and sub-groups and for the most part everyone stayed in one place.
As ever let’s imagine the stories between the pictures. And if you see yourself or someone you knew back then, please get in touch. We’d love to hear your story.
“There was a lot of smoking and ducking from the seagulls who would either shit on you or steal your lunch. If you were particularly unlucky they would eat your lunch and then shit it on you after”
– Camille Toloui
“In the four years of high school, I didn’t really stay with one group – which was a bit unusual but it meant I was able to wander between the punks, the stoners, the heavy metal dudes, the volleyball players and whoever else.”
Partly this was because I was such an awkward hippy radical weirdo that I didn’t fit neatly into any one group, but also because I started an underground newspaper and took art and writing submissions from anyone who had something to say. This enabled me to break through the barriers of identity groupings that were so much a part of the California high school experience.
– Camille Toloui
“My teenage years were about protest. I had already gone through an intense period of satanic heavy metal drug-filled rebellion in my 12-14 ages and came out the other side as an angry anti-nuclear, anti-Reagan, anti-apartheid birkenstock-wearing hippy girl. I liked going to Berkeley and San Francisco on the weekends for protests and taking pictures.”
– Camille Toloui
“In high school I was learning how to develop film and make prints in the darkroom. I was very heavily under the influence of Diane Arbus at the time and I think that’s what inspired me to bring my camera to the quad at lunch time. I remember one day bringing a borrowed long lens that had a focus problem and that’s what set me going doing close-up portraits, even after I switched to a wider, fixed lens.”
– Camille Toloui
“I’ve always loved these portraits, but I love them even more now that they’ve aged – and I’ve aged – and I’ve changed from cynical to sentimental about that time and place.”
– Camille Toloui
All images and text ©2026 Cammie Toloui.
You can se more of Cammie’s work at her website cammiet.com
Would you like to support Flashbak?
Please consider making a donation to our site. We don't want to rely on ads to bring you the best of visual culture. You can also support us by signing up to our Mailing List. And you can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. For great art and culture delivered to your door, visit our shop.
