Viggo Rivad - Denmark, 2007

If he wasn’t such a dear friend for so many years - we travelled to China as part of a delegation in 1983 - I’d never dared ask to take pictures of him. You see, Viggo is the grand old man of Danish photography. He was born in 1923 and more curious and lively still than many half his age. There is a deep social commitment, an attention to the little man, to loneliness and suffering - but also to the funny little aspects of everyday life in everything he pictures - whether in Denmark, Italy, China, Egypt, or Cuba.

Insisting on being a taxi driver until a few years ago, he has never had to compromise since he was his very own, independent, and never under a commercial pressure to produce.

Viggo is a genius with a camera. His eye for human life corresponds with his own humility and generosity - the latter I know from all the inspiration and advice he gave me in China and gives me even today. Fortunately, we meet frequently.

Almost all the images are taken in Viggo’s apartment in Amager, Copenhagen in 2007.

In 2009, I made a new series - here.