Photographer Brian Griffin's best shot

Four years ago, I was doing a big project in Iceland. It meant travelling all round, and at one point I went to the small town of Höfn, in the southeast corner. It has 1,500 people, one bar, one hotel. It's like the end of the world – there's nothing there. It looked like the most difficult place on earth to take pictures. So I decided to spend a month there, to see what I could do, even though this was before the crunch and Iceland was frighteningly expensive. In May 2007, I housed myself in Höfn's hotel. In that month, no one there made any attempt to even talk to me. No one bought me a drink, or invited me for a meal. I spent every single day on my own, except for the times when my wife Brynja, who's from Iceland herself, came for a visit. As we drove around one day, I noticed this extraordinary-looking farmer. While Brynja was asking if he'd mind being photographed, she spotted a newborn lamb and offered the farmer £350 to spare its life. She christened it Steinunn, a common woman's name in Iceland. It struck me as the perfect way to shoot the farmer, so I brought out my lights. I shot in black-and-white on a Hasselblad. Looking at the sky, I think the rain was coming in. Iceland has extraordinary light quality: the cloud structure changes rapidly, the sunlight cascades through. I didn't have anything planned. It just occurred to me to ask him to lie down. I'm always looking for the unusual. There's something spiritual about this picture: Christian iconography always seems to be hanging around in my work. "I want to make sure the lamb lives a complete life and won't be slaughtered," my wife told the farmer at one point. "You're not going to kill it and eat it." CV Born : Birmingham, 1948. Studied : Photography at Manchester College of Art and Design, 1969-72. Infuences : "I prefer fine arts (Caspar David Friedrich, Stanley Spencer) and music (Mark E Smith of the Fall). High point : "The Guardian awarding me photographer of the decade in 1989!"