Rivad sees the world through its people. “My photography has almost always been about human beings – the people around me and how they lived. Those at the bottom caught my heart probably because that is where I came from myself. You know, the people whose story no one chose to tell.”

Of course he has been inspired by others – such as André Kertész, Brassaï, Robert Doisneau, Villy Ronis – but he has never been part of a photo or other artistic community or “school”. His style is genuinely his own.

There is the story from long ago that young Rivad was browsing a book of Cartier-Bresson’s photos at an art editor’s table and the editor asked whether he liked them. Rivad answered that he thought they were fantastic not the least because he was shooting photos the way Rivad did! Indeed, there are many similarities between them but Rivad says: “I had of course made a total fool of myself for not knowing Cartier-Bresson at the time. However, I soon came to admire him immensely, even copy him. But he was milder than I was. I wanted to reveal something about people, about the human condition. That wasn’t his priority.”