The big picture: David Arnold’s mystery man

Arnold’s photographs tend to pose more questions than they answer. In his new book, You Are What You Do, from which this image is taken, there are no titles or captions, no introduction or helpful essays to tell us what’s going on. We’re left to find our own meanings in these scenes of revelry and street-level activity populated by an array of colourful New Yorkers.

When I asked Arnold’s publishers for some background on the man with the flowers, I was told that Arnold was too busy to comment and that, anyway, they weren’t keen to unpick the stories behind each photo. Fair enough, I thought. Then Arnold emailed me back with “the scoop”, as he called it. The photograph was taken on the set of a music video for the indie-rock band Parquet Courts in Brooklyn Heights, on to which Arnold had stumbled by chance, and the man in the grey suit was Keith Richards.

I did a double take – was that really a moonlighting Stone behind the wheel? – before realising that he meant the actor Keith William Richards, best known for playing a gangster in the film Uncut Gems. The tone of the shoot “seemed pretty goofy and energetic,” Arnold recalled, “but [Richards] let the mask drop as his thoughts wandered, visiting somewhere else for a sec, and I strolled by and caught some proof.”

In the video, Richards moves about Brooklyn looking mean. The bouquets appear in the car without explanation, softening his attitude. Later, he hands out flowers to passersby in a riverside park. The last person to take one is a moustachioed man in a hoodie with a camera held at waist height. I took a closer look. It was Daniel Arnold.

Photograph Daniel Arnold 2025 courtesy Loose Joints