For Joel, light is more than a photographic tool. In his pictures, it becomes a photographic subject in its own right, lending human figures, landscapes, or even automobiles an almost unearthly lightness. Everything takes off and starts to shimmer a little, almost like in one of those dreams where you can fly. His wonderful exaggerations of reality go far beyond the cheerful monotony of much of contemporary photography. Genuine lightness is, after all, hard to come by.

Parallel to his commercial work, Joel’s fine arts projects have been exhibited in galleries from London and Los Angeles to New York, Paris, Tokyo, and Berlin. Some of his awards include ADC Young Guns, ADC Awards, Adobe Design Achievement Award, Sony World Photography Awards, PDN ́s 30, International Color Awards, International Photography Awards, European Architectural Photography Prize, Golden Eye Award, and the Kodak Fotokalenderpreis.

He lives with his small family in Stuttgart, Germany.