David Claessen is a Dutch cinematographer and director.
Claessen attended the Netherlands Film Academy () in Amsterdam.
In 1983, he shot Haute Mer, directed by French filmmaker Edgardo Cozarinsky.
In 1997 Claessen met director Julie Dash. They have collaborated on four films together: including the award-winning The Rosa Parks Story, Love Song (2000), Brothers of the Borderland (2004), and Travel Notes of a Geechee Girl (2016).
In 1986, Claessen moved to the United States where he met Whoopi Goldberg during production of a documentary entitled Who Are They? They married in September 1986 and divorced two years later. Claessen married American writer and photographer Taiye Selasi in 2013; the couple divorced in 2015.