Capturing that tropical lifestyle.

Maybe it’s the fact they’re all captured on film, or that they all feature leafy plants, bikinis and boats, but there’s something that feels very 80s about Ryley Mcgregor’s portfolio. The collection of snaps below look like they were captured at a once-fancy vintage resort that is stuck in its ways and refuses to change, unaffected by social media and trends. Safe to say any collection of photos that inspire visions of parallel universes and timezones must be pretty fucking cool (in our books, anyway).

Impressively, the 26-year-old only started taking photography seriously a couple of years ago, following a sporting accident. “After tearing my ACL skateboarding I needed a creative outlet,” he says. “My first camera would have been an old Pentax, but that didn’t get much use. My girlfriend Nina brought me a secondhand Canon 550d DSLR which sparked photography as a hobby. Since then I have moved mainly to film. I had a few point-and-shoots but now shooting on a Contax G2 rangefinder. At the time this was a big purchase for me but worth it for the image quality and control of the camera’s settings.”

Having made it over the Queensland border just before it was shut due to COVID-19, Ryley, who is normally based in Sydney, has spent the past few months travelling up and down the coastline, sailing the Whitsunday Islands with his girlfriend. We can only assume that he’s working hard and burning through plenty of film along the way… Or maybe it just makes us feel a little better to think that he’s working as we sweat it out in our Sydney office.

Over his brief time as a photographer, he counts his first campaign experience as a career highlight. “Whilst on a road trip, getting the call up to shoot a campaign for a Byron Bay brand the day before the shoot, having never shot a campaign – this was a crazy feeling for me,” he says. And we can’t imagine that it will be the last time a big label wants to work with him, as long as he keeps churning out pics like the ones below. Check ‘em out and head here to follow him on Instagram: