‘The collie was trying to herd the lamb – but failing’: Mark Aitken’s best phone picture

The New Zealand-born photographer was planning to take a portrait of a farm owner when two animals caught his eye

For the last two years, Mark Aitken has been working on a photo series in Lapland. “It’s called Presence of Absence,” he says, “and it explores the liminal and sometimes uncanny boundaries between life and death experienced by people living in this extreme climate and landscape.”

Aitken, who was born in New Zealand, raised in South Africa and has lived in London for years, took this photo in spring of this year, on a sheep farm. “Kukkola is a borderland hamlet in Finnish Lapland on the River Tornio, near Sweden. The farm has been running for 20 years and this lamb is one of about 100 born in March and April,” he says.