Joel van Houdt (b. 1981, the Netherlands) is an independent photojournalist based in London.

He studied Photography and Design in Bradford, UK, and graduated from the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague in 2003, with a project on the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad.

In 2002 he started working as a freelance photojournalist in The Netherlands, and on long-term projects about migration and the former Soviet Union.

In 2010 he moved to Afghanistan where he has worked until 2022. This work will be published in a book in 2025.

After living in Kyiv and Moscow he moved to London in 2020.

Joel’s work has appeared in various publications including Al Jazeera America, COLORS, FT Weekend Magazine, GEO Germany, GEO China, GQ, The Guardian, The Guardian Weekend Magazine, NRC Handelsblad, Der Spiegel, Stern, The Sunday Age, TIME, Trouw, De Volkskrant, Vrij Nederland, The New Republic, The New York Times Magazine, The Times, The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post.