At the age of 18 he enrolled on a commercial trade ship, spent a few months in New York and was offered a job as a sailor by the photographer Finn Bergan in the remake of Windjammer.
[1] Kristo got photographic education at ArtCenter College of Design and received a letter of recommendation by the editor Richard Pollard at Life (magazine).
[2] In Paris 1961 Arild Kristo took one of his most appreciated and highly priced photographs, The portrait painter on Montmartre, now in the collection of the Norwegian National museum.
[4] In Berlin at Checkpoint Charlie he discovered the boy Manfred Stein, who played the lead in Kristo's first experiment in photojournalism.
Eddie og Suzanne, a road movie with a love theme, took six years to complete but landed 1975 in a critic and audience success.