The first time I’ve encountered Joe, the IRL behind @moderntraditional on Instagram was during Lucas Lau’s hunt for a new photographer at Pestle & Mortar Clothing in late 2017. His portfolio was a Wix site plastered with gorgeous portraits set in lush greenery, muted tones or overlaid with neon signs—very telling of a rising photographer’s first taste of VSCO presets. Although I didn’t want to assume the entirety of what Joe does as a creative, I feel like I’ve built enough rapport to ask him “So what the fuck do you do?”
He tells me he’s a photographer who does portraits, editorials, events, concerts and “club stuff". He’s probably one of the many photographers who showcases the bizarre, epileptic nightlife scene dominated by the Yeezy and Furla-toting Gen Z crowd. Even after two Drake albums, some of them have yet to recover from their prayer hand poses, but I digress.
“So you’re the guy who keeps underage kids away from the clubs?”
“Yeah, kids walk up to me and ask ‘Can you delete that photo?’ I took this photo of a guy who was with these two white girls. He was all for it in the moment, but went like ‘Bro, can you delete the photo ‘ once it was over. I knew he has a girlfriend,” he recalls. He’s not one to kantoi (translation: bust or rat), though.
290 Likes, 37 Comments - Joe (@moderntraditional) on Instagram: "First photo from an awesome series with @kxtly and @nrfz_x It was their first time modelling for..."
While he has a preference towards editorials, he doesn’t just label himself as a fashion photographer. He doesn’t consider the Malaysian scene to be a place where creatives can make a living just by doing what they’re passionate about. For Joe, he has things that he’s passionate about, and those that pay the bills.
To thread back to his origins in photography, Joe reminisces on a photo his father took on a biking trip: a landscape shot of clouds and roads as leading lines. He didn’t find the photo particularly interesting (sorry, uncle), though. “I was like, cool, but why would you want to brag about that? I think I can do better,” he shrugs. He didn’t start off with an entry-level Canon or test shoots with friends who are pseudo-influencers, though. With a “shitty 800 ringgit Asus phone” he started @moderntraditional with the usual hit-or-miss macro shots of flowers and fireflies, just like the rest of us. The photos have since been long deleted “I could take them right now and pretend it was taken right there and then.”
His earlier days in portfolio building were spent with on product shoots for second-degree contacts, test shoots and being the designated family photographer. From an early shoot he discovered on-screen relationships from talent who “were mostly stuck on their phones until the cameras came on,” but it’s not something he mulls over. He knows it’s fake, but I don’t think it bothers him unless the photographs blow. This only helped solidify his distinction between portraits and editorials, something I wasn’t familiar with prior to our discussion. The former aims to capture the subject in their element, while the latter portrays an occasionally fictional narrative.
When I asked if he has consciously acknowledged, strived towards or been told about a signature style he portrays through his work, he seems a bit clueless, offering a “I don’t know what my style is”. Perhaps the the lack of introspection, but as an outsider and a former collaborator, I’ve only interpreted his words as being versatile. Upon further discussion, he expresses his constant desire to ‘evoke’ through his personal projects.
“Evoke what? Could be a boner,” I cackled.
I’m not sure if he laughed with or at me. Rather than emotions portrayed from a boudoir shoot (not that there’s anything wrong about it), he wants his audience to feel a sense of melancholy. I told him I wrote “understated glamour” in my notes as an attempt to describe his work, and asked if he agreed. “I don’t usually go for colourful, happy vibes. I like shooing mundane things—it can be subtle but kind of beautiful,” he explains. And to that, I say “Back to you, Laman Seni.”
I’m not sure if there’s a Freudian explanation behind this, but he also loves getting his models to smoke. If that’s not a signature style, I don’t know what is.
247 Likes, 12 Comments - Joe (@moderntraditional) on Instagram: "@kirillnakolkin in @pestlemortarclothing SS19. HERE NOW."
176 Likes, 10 Comments - Joe (@moderntraditional) on Instagram: "Throwback to "From My Melancholy" with @sampei.okuno 5 months ago. So glad we got to catch up again..."
159 Likes, 1 Comments - Joe (@moderntraditional) on Instagram: "@lizchansf and @tesspang for @pestlemortarclothing F/W 18 . Art/Set:@tsa_meera Lighting:@samzkoayx..."
“So why @moderntraditional?”
There’s a slight shift from smugness to embarrassment. “The name doesn’t have a meaning, I just thought it was cool. I know it’s detrimental because you’re supposed to have your own brand—” I reassured him it’s not that deep, “How many times do you want your friends to walk you through meanings of each of their tattoos?” He said it was either that or ‘datjoetho’, his gamer tag. Just like how he only refers to the creatives and talent he works with by their handles, I was unfazed when he told me he gets referred by his handle in real life, “Not like ‘Hey Modern!’, but more like ‘Hey, ModernTraditional™!”
Apart from Joe’s impressive portfolio, another thing that struck us back in 2017 was his age—barely 18. Now 20, I asked if his age was something he was particularly conscious of, and if he tried to stray away from making it known to prevent others from not taking him seriously. To him, age is just a cherry on top. “I think it works in my favour because my work speaks for itself. Age isn’t a factor in our times anymore, we don’t have to wait. We don’t have to go to school, get our degrees and only work from then on,” he explains. All that’s left are passion and will power to learn. In my own words I now ask the reader: how desperate are you to succeed?
“I think [my age] works towards my favour because my work speaks for itself. Age isn’t a factor in our times anymore, we don’t have to wait. We don’t have to go to school, get our degrees and only work from then on.”
Just like the chicken and egg debacle, I asked whether if being an influencer or creative came first. “Obviously the work comes first, and I think it’s possible to be a creative without being an influencer,” he answers. While he thinks fame helps get clients, it’s not the only way to succeed, “A lot of creatives struggle when they first start out because they focus on building their following—this should be secondary because if your work is good, people notice.” Sure, the fanbase is great, but getting work is about reaching the right people, not necessarily the amount. “You’re charging yourself like an influencer, not a creative,” when I pointed out that followers become transactional as creatives demand for fair pay.
Throughout our conversation, we threw around the word ‘creative’ a lot and I asked why the title possessed such a negative connotation. “Malaysia’s not as appreciative of their creatives yet. They want something that works, but don’t necessarily care about the thought that goes behind it,” he brings up an example of how he had to challenge his artistic decisions against a business one: client wants to plaster his marketing collaterals with vectors of price bubbles. To understand his thought process, I played Devil’s Advocate and suggested an alternative school of thought where “boss say jump, you say how high?”
“You should still fight, because at the end of the day you’re going to have to call it your work and have it represent you. Clients come to you for your knowledge and expertise. Or else, just don’t call it yours. Get paid and go home.”
“ Clients come to you for your knowledge and expertise. Or else, just don’t call it yours. Get paid and go home.”
Something else that was apparent to his work ethic was the spirit of gung-ho. Throughout our various interactions, I’ve never heard him say no or be picky about his clients, to which he “definitely agrees but personally needs to learn how to say ‘no’”. While he foresees the danger in taking on too much to the point of a burning out artistically, he still thinks he he’s not in a position to say no, especially when there’s so much to learn “If I do a lot more, I fail a lot more. But when I fail a lot more, I also learn a lot more.”
Joe has also picked up on a few things since he started his career. He thanks Lucas for taking on the risk to “make him who he is today”, not just by investing time and effort, but also loaning him a personal asset—his camera. Through lessons in professionalism, workflow and technical knowledge, he has definitely evolved from a “natural light” photographer. As he laments on not knowing how to ever pay him back, I simply suggested “Just don’t be a shitty photographer.” Through models, he now knows better than to direct them too often, and safeguards himself by always asking for consent. The last thing he wants is a lawsuit.
As part of The Capital Creatives, a collective of photographers and videographers founded by fellow wunderkind Chris Chew, Joe has gone on to shoot large scale events and concerts. Through a friendship that stemmed from one of the many photo walks he’s attended, he has since gained a few from Chris: understanding content virality and running social media. “He understands social media, he’ll leave captions that pursues follower engagement,” he elaborates. I was also curious on how it was like working in collective, “Instead of striving towards the same style, we all shoot our own, then curate the best selection. This offers more flexility for the client.”
“A lot of creatives struggle when they first start out because they focus on building their following—this should be secondary because if your work is good, people notice.”
Throughout the four shoots I’ve collaborated with him on (five if you count my graduation shoot), his enthusiasm has always been apparent. The air of certainty and his ability to command shoots did not seem to leverage off a blind belief towards constant success. While he doesn’t take his talent for granted, he definitely acknowledges and embraces the possibility of failure, and that’s okay. To him, youth isn’t an excuse, but a luxury for opportunities as long as he tries.