I'm an artist living in a small, Scottish village. So one would expect to be treated with some sort of caution. And the village and the farmers have shown enormous tolerance of me and interest in what I do. I mean, they don't necessarily understand what I'm doing all the time. But they, you know, I think they respect what I do and that there is a connection between what they do with the land and what I do, you know, that we're both dependent on weather and respond to that.

The photography is not the aim of the work; the articulation of the work through photography is another way of understanding what's going on and what's happening outside.

My approach to photograph is kept simple, almost routine. All work, good and bad, is documented. I use standard film, a standard lens and no filters. Each work grows, strays, decays-integral parts of a cycle which the photograph shows at its height, marking the moment when the work is most alive. There is an intensity about a work at its peak that I hope is expresses in the image. Process and decay are implicit.

A snowball is simple, direct and familiar to most of us. I use this simplicity as a container for feelings and ideas that function on many levels.

When I do the permanent projects or the big projects, when a work is finished, that's the beginning of its life.

The stones tear like flesh, rather than breaking. Although what happens is violent, it is a violence that is in stone. A tear is more unnerving than a break.

I have worked with this red all over the world - in Japan, California, France, Britain, Australia - a vein running round the earth. It has taught me about the flow, energy and life that connects one place with another.