Dutch photojournalist and C4C jury member Ilvy Njiokiktjien has picked one of my photographs as her weekly favourites, making my image shot in supermarket Albert Heijn one of the jury’s weekly picks of the Care 4 Corona photo awards. To see more of my most recent photographs, take a look at my Instagram profile.
Fotolab KieKie Instagram Take-over
I'm taking of the Instagram-account of the renowned, Amsterdam-based FotoLabKiekie! The famous photo laboratorium isn't just the go-to place in Amsterdam to get a picture professionally printed, they're also the creators of the quarterly published Kiekie Tabloid. On the side, they run a pretty neat Instagram account, where they mainly focus on featuring young talent. This week, until July 16th, I'll be posting some of my best work on their account. Check it out!
My page in the @visiterlafrique Africa book
When I traveled through Ivory Coast, Mali and Senegal a bit more than a year ago, Diane Audrey Ngako asked me to take over her @visiterlafrique Instagram account, which "documents rare, hidden hotspots on the continent and disrupts tourism", according to Quartz Africa. Later on, she asked me if she could feature one of the posted photos in the book she made: 'They call it Africa, we call it home'. You can see the result of our collaboration on the pictures and video above! I haven't gotten my hands on my copy yet, so I have stolen some pictures photographer Yasmine Ferdjani uploaded to her Instagram story. I took this photo on Gorée Island, near Senegal's capital Dakar. I uploaded the picture with the following caption on Instagram:
The easygoing island vibe, the friendly people spending their day outside, the crumbling down, colored colonial buildings - Île de Gorée is easily one of the prettiest places we've visited during our trip. This nice island has a gruesome history, though. Because the European colons were initially afraid of attacks and diseases on Africa's main land, they used the islands near the coasts as their bases. That's how Île de Gorée, 3 kilometers from Dakar, eventually became an important center for the slave trade. You can still visit the infamous and impressive 'Maison des Esclaves', where you can learn that also the Dutch have occupied the island, and that they're responsible for Gorée's name: they once named it after the Dutch island of Goeree, which stands for 'Goede Reede' ('Good Port').
You'll find more features, collaborations and assignments on the 'Features' page.
About smartphone photography: AVROTROS Radar
Jeroen and Jacob of the AVROTROS TV and radio program Radar invited me for a half hour talk about smartphone photography! As a 'Instagram photographer', I gave some tips on shooting pictures with a phone. During the Facebook Live stream, I also answered questions of Radar's followers - through the years, they gathered over 160k likers on Facebook alone! Though the livestream has obviously ended, the video is still online on their Facebook page.
Featured by TravelAfrique
Like Visiter l'Afrique, a platform that has featured my work both online and offline, 'TravelAfrique' is an online platform that aims to disrupt tourism to Africa. One way of doing that, is by highlighting pictures that travelers take on their journeys to the African continent and by organizing travels to these specific places. On their IG page, they have featured some of my work (see a selection above), so do check out their feed for more pictures!
To see more features, assignments and collabs, check out the 'Features' page!
We're back from Iran
The last couple of weeks, I've been posting pictures I took in Iran on my Instagram feed. We went sightseeing in bigger cities like Esfahan, Tehran and Shiraz, we've 'sandboarded' in the Varzaneh desert, we've watched ships set sail from the harbour of Bandar-e-Anzali and we've hiked through the mountains surrounding Tabriz and Masouleh.
Despite the cultural differences and the questionable regime in charge, we've made a wonderful two week-trip around the country. Before we went, some friends and family members confused Iran with surrounding countries like Iraq, of Afghanistan. The truth is that I've never felt unsafe, and that travelling across the country was both affordable and very comfortable.
Almost every Iranian we've met asked us the same bunch of questions: how do we like the country? And what do people in The Netherlands think of Iran? Because they know some Westerners see Iran as this dark, fundamentalistic place full of terror and angry muslims, they go the extra mile in welcoming tourists. I know it sounds tacky, but I've never been to a more hospitable country than Iran.
If you'd like to make a similar trip, and need some tips & recommendations, don't hesitate drop me a message through Instagram! To see the pictures I took during the presidential elections, check out this older blogpost.
Featured by Canon
The official account of Canon Nederland featured one of my pictures on their feed! Especially exciting, because the picture is my entry for their super cool #liveforthestory contest. Contestants can win a all-expense-paid trip around the world. The jury members, including members of Canon's social media teams and actress annex Canon ambassador Zoë Kravitz are now looking at the entries.
To see more features, assignments and collabs, check out the 'Features' page!
Interview Vance.nl
Vance, a 'website for the next generation', interviewed me about my travels! In the interview, I told Vance's Nina Bogosavac about my favourite destination so far, about which apps I use when travelling and which spots are still on my travel bucket list - amongst other things.
Check out the interview (in Dutch) on Vance.nl!
You'll find more features, collaborations and assignments on the 'Features' page.
I'm now a 'Fjällräven Ambassador'
I am now one of the four 'Fjällräven Ambassadors'! Together with great photographers like Pie Aerts (he's also in 'Depart'!), I've created some images for the Swedish outdoor brand. Fjällräven opened a store on Amsterdam's Rozengracht, and for their long-term 'Flagship Store' campaign, I took photos like the ones above. Check out #fjallraven_amsterdam for more pictures!
Featured: Lonely Planet Traveller
One of my pictures is published in the Dutch edition of Lonely Planet Traveller! This month’s edition is dedicated to festivals all over the world, and for that reason the editors featured a picture I took in Ivory Coast, during Grand Bassam’s annual Abissa festival.
You'll find more features, collaborations and assignments on the 'Features' page.
Collaboration with Toyota
Check out this donkey in Escapism Magazine
After taking over their Instagram account, the guys from Escapism Magazine also featured my photography in their print edition! If you're in the United Kingdom, you can check out the donkey shot I took in Jordan in the March edition of UK's biggest independent travel magazine. Here's what they wrote:
"Follow Amsterdam-based Joost's adventures to West Africa, India and more for a glimpse into the daily lives of the country's residents. Baguettes on a motorbike? Donkey in a desert? Soccer at sunset? It's all here."
You'll find more features, collaborations and assignments on the 'Features' page.
My work is featured by Escapism Magazine!
When The Guardian put ‘Depart’ high on their ‘Top 10 Travel Books for Christmas’ list, more and more people learned about the photo book we made. Some of those people work at Great Britain’s biggest independent travel magazine Escapism Magazine, a monthly publication (with a circulation of 100,600) that goes out across London once a month.
They’ve asked me to take over their Instagram account, so make sure to check out their feed on the following couple of days! Pictures I took in India will also appear in their newsletter and the March issue of Escapism Magazine - so if you're in London in March, grab me a copy okay?!