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?!
Instagram takeover: Visiter l'Afrique
When Diane Audrey Ngako asked me if I'd like to temporarily 'take over' her platform's Instagram account, I didn't hesitate for a second. "To inspire you to travel around Africa", she started the @visiterlafrique account and the linked website two years ago. Eventually, she even quit her job as a Le Monde journalist to pursue her African dream - she now runs a big, and still growing platform with 'ambassadors' all over the African continent.
From last Monday until the end of today, I've posted pictures of my trip to Ivory Coast, Mali and Senegal on Diane's @visiterlafrique Instagram account, you can check them out here. I'd love to hear what you think - send me a message !
'Depart' is featured on Hypebeast & The Guardian!
Pretty exciting: MENDO book 'Depart' is one of the best travel books of 2016, according to The Guardian. On their website, one of the biggest English news websites of the world, Will Coldwell names 'Depart' in The Guardian's 'Top 10 Travel Books For Christmas' list. The book is also recently featured on culture & fashion website Hypebeast. Check it out! Or just buy the book here.
We're back!
We’re back from our trip to Ivory Coast, Mali and Senegal! And if you haven’t already read about it on Instagram: we had three great weeks. Ivory Coast is tropical, in your face, lively and a bit crazy. I loved the 'maquis', little bars where you can drink a beer and eat some fried chicken, and the Abissa festival in Grand-Bassam was more than awesome.
Mali is a lot calmer, but there’s something simmering, right underneath the surface. It’s weird to visit a country at war, but apart from the military checkpoints in and around Bamako, day to day life goes on. It’s a country with a lot of kids - the average Malian is 16 years old - and we spotted a lot of kids. Even in the sparsely populated areas of the country we had encounters with toddlers that looked at us like they’ve never seen a white person before, which might just be the case.
Senegal is a richer country, more controlled, and we had a lot of fun in the beautiful eastern corner of the country, around Kédougou. We’ve also been to Saint-Louis and Dakar, two bigger cities that used to be very important for the French colons, and that’s still noticeable. You can see some of the pictures I took in those three countries above - I'll also be sharing my thoughts on an African HUB-account on Instagram. Follow me on IG to see which account that's going to be and if you have any questions, don't hesitate to send me an email!
From my night shift at the 'President's Night'
So last night started out great - I enjoyed a great performance by the phenomenal Gregory Porter at the royal Carré theatre. Afterwards, I went straight to the 'Melkweg' music venue to record the video above. There, at the 'President's Night' event, there were almost no Trump supporters (and a lot of Clinton supporters), so around 3am local time the mood turned a bit grim. I was surprised by the election's outcome as well - I guess that has something to do with my 'web bubble': definitely check out this piece by Matthew Hughes.
Picture by Deniz Alkaç
Presented a web series about mobile photography for Simyo
For the first time in my life, I've hosted a video web series for Dutch telephone provider Simyo! In cooperation with Bruut Amsterdam and advertising agency Kokoro, I'm giving some tips and tricks on how to take a good picture with a smartphone. The four videos are being edited now, and will be published on YouTube and Facebook. Pretty exciting! To be continued.
'Depart' has arrived!
After 'Starring Amsterdam', I've spent a lot of evenings and weekend days working on a brand new photo book, called 'Depart'. In the book, 25 Insta-famous photographers (handpicked by Willem, Bob and Bastiaan Sizoo) take you on a visual trip along their favourite locations. I'm responsible for every text, the introduction and a chapter with pictures I took in Jordan, Palestine and Israel. I'm super proud! The book has been launched at Hutspot Amsterdam and is now broadly available (also online).
There's a new Artfest evening on its way
Artfest is back! The talkshow about art, hosted by Marian Cousijn and Ernst-Jan Pfauth of De Correspondent, starts its new season on Amsterdams yearly 'Museum Night' event. The theme of the first edition is 'Future dreams' and will feature three guests from the international art scene - Agatha Haines, Jesse Howard and Lennart Booij will be interviewed on stage (more info here!). And because of the 'Museumnacht', the Artfest stage will be in the world famous 'Stedelijk Museum'! I will be there to direct the talkshow, and I hope I'll see you there as well: Museumnacht tickets can be bought through this link.
An evening at the Rijks
The people from the world famous Rijksmuseum invited a bunch of photographers to take a sneak peak at their two new exhibitions, and I was lucky enough to be one of them! After hours, in an empty museum, we admired the work of Hercules Segers and Frans Post: check out the photos others took through this link. It was great to be in an #emptyrijks again - see some pictures I took there on an earlier visit with photographer Eelco Roos through this, this, this and this hyperlink.
The Carli Hermès retrospective is out now!
Carli Hermès, one of the most renowned Dutch photographers worldwide, has officially launched his new photo book: 'Carli Hermès - Three decades of uncompromising photography'. The book is filled with photos from Carli's archive and his more recent commercial work, but also has one chapter with photos he shot especially for this retrospective. For me, this was my first job as a 'ghostwriter', because I'm responsible for the two forewords of the book. I extensively interviewed Carli's agent, Narda van 't Veer and Suitsupply founder Fokke de Jong for their introductions. You can read more about the book here, or buy it immediately through mendo.nl.
Featured by The Adventure Handbook / Print for sale!
One of my photos is for sale! The guys from The Adventure Handbook are selling an A1 print of this picture on Fujifilm lustre paper, for 250,- AUD (171 Euros). Check out their website for more information or click here to see more breath taking pictures they're selling.
The Australian website and magazine 'The Adventure Handbook' set up an international photo competition, and one of my pictures I took on a trip to Norway (see above) made it to the final round. That also meant that my photo was included in their Sydney and Melbourne exhibitions. To read more about the photo comp, see what the jury people from VICE wrote about it (they also featured my photo on their TCP website).
The Adventure Handbook photo comp
Goodspace Gallery, Sydney & RVCA Gallery, Melbourne
29-05-16 until 21-08-16
About the picture: my friend Lex Boon and I once traveled to Norway to find Trygve, a guy Lex was making a story about. We found him on the shortest day of the year, when he was swimming in a frozen ice lake. We extensively interviewed the bearded Norseman about his frozen, dead grandpa - Trygve believes that if you keep a corpse cold enough, it will at some point in time be possible to resuscitate it. He also thinks that ice baths are healthy for anyone who is still alive. That’s why he went for a swim in the middle of the harsh winter.
Update: the print is sold! But if you'd like to buy one of my pictures, you can always contact me.
New visual inspiration online at JLW
More than six years ago, I started a blog. Sort of. I named it 'Joost Lult Wel', and the idea was to set up a place where people would only find images - the site's tagline since then is: 'Hey you! I'm Joost. In real life I talk a lot, and as of a compensation - here's something to look at.'
Since 2009, over 2.000 people regularly check the website for a quick fix of inspirational visuals. The lion's share of those visuals aren't made by me - you can see it as my visual selection of the interwebs as a whole. I sometimes forget to queue pictures, but just now I've posted a whole bunch you can check out at joostlultwel.tumblr.com.
Work: an evening on privacy for 'De Correspondent'
Recently, I have directed an evening about privacy for Dutch online journalism platform 'De Correspondent'. Speakers, writers, politicians and hackers talked and debated in front of a packed Stadsschouwburg in Utrecht, on one of the biggest issues of our time: privacy. It turns out you do have to hide something, so that's also the title of the book Dimitri Tokmetzis and Maurits Martijn (both journalists for De Correspondent) launched on the same evening. To see and read more about the evening and/or the book 'Je hebt wél iets te verbergen', click here & here!
Pictures by photographer Bas Losekoot.