Troy Davies

Troy Davies is a born and bred Capetonian.
When he was growing up he was very keen on cycling and skating which would impact his photographic style and subject matter later on in life. The first time he picked up a camera was in the mid 90’s, it was his dad’s 35mm film camera and he enjoyed experimenting with black and white photography.

After school he received a diploma in sound engineering and worked for a few years at music concerts, it was a great experience which allowed him back stage access to some of the world’s most influential artists at the time, this too would prove useful in his Photographic career.

A few years later while living in the UK in the early 2000’s Troy bought his first video camera. At that time he was working in motorsport and used the camera to document Formula 1, Superbikes and Moto GP, but at that stage photography and video was still a hobby.

Throughout his working career Troy was always a keen photographer and took his camera everywhere he went. He clearly remembers his first proper DSLR purchase, a Nikon D80 and he eventually upgraded that to a D7000 which was the stepping stone back into video.

In 2011 he left his full time employment and became an entrepreneur starting his company Retroyspective. It is a platform for not only himself but to collaborate with other likeminded individuals on projects. Initially he cut his teeth filming downhill skateboarding and mountain biking. As his circle of colleagues grew this eventually led to working on a few TV shows for the then popular MK channel on DSTV.

Troy’s big break was with cycling. He was approached by Oakley to put together a series on some of their key athletes at the 2013 Absa Cape Epic. This opened up his eyes to international productions, products and events. Troy still works closely with The Absa Cape Epic and produce content for them on an annual basis.

Most of the imagery he create is quite varied from TVC’s to photography campaigns to documentaries. His ideal working environment is the outdoors and he loves working in the mountains and at the beach, as long as there are wide open spaces and beautiful backgrounds, he is quite happy.

Troy’s lucky number is 19 and this was no coincidence that in 2019 he was appointed as one of the international Z-creators specialising in creating content exclusively on the Nikon Mirrorless Z cameras.

‘It is quite an honour to be appointed for this role as it‘s a great platform to showcase our beautiful country to the rest of the world’ he said.