Photos of My High School Friends in Our Favourite Haunts

I've lived most of my life in Creteil, a suburban area of Paris by the Marne river. It's where I spent my formative years, my best days and my worst days. These Parisian suburbs – or "banlieues" – are usually working class and renowned for their decaying tower blocks. They're demonised in the media for being havens for violent crime and terrorism.

I don't think the banlieues are like that, so I shot my own version of Creteil. My work tends to lean towards reminiscing on and revisiting old memories, so when I went back home this summer and saw old friends, I took them back to our old haunts from high school.

My friend Marie looks back on her middle school and the places she would go to flirt with the boy she had a crush on. Groover has lived here his whole life, 25 years in the same harbour town, and a decade playing in local basketball courts. A lot of us would spend our summers hanging out in town, at the car park of the shopping mall, partying by the water on Bords de Marne.

Over time, lots of us left – to go to university or for work, or just leaving to get out and go somewhere better. But you never really leave anywhere in the past; most of our families still live here, and that's what draws us back. reginalc.com