I can’t tell you how glad I am to have found this page. The book I really want to find may have been written in the 50s/60s, I read it in the late 70s.
I think the main character’s name is Nancy. She has two friends, one of whom is the “pretty” one, popular, loved by all the boys. A new guy moves to town and Nancy starts crushing on him very hard. The popular friend goes after him (I vividly remember a scene at a party where they were dancing “rock and roll” style and the friend took her shoes off and was really getting into it with the new guy. Nancy the wallflower watches and is sad and jealous.
Nancy gets a job at some point. She makes friends with the new guy, who gets her interested in photography. She takes a picture of some flowers, that she calls “worms-eye view of asters” and the guy secretly enters into a photography contest, which she wins.
Lost Classics of Teen Lit: Name That Book! 