When Weston exiled himself to Mexico with Tina Modotti in 1923 he sought to shed the constraints of his commercial practice in Glendale. That business relied heavily on portraiture and the soft focus pictorial style which Weston had pleased his clientele with. It is no wonder that once removed from that environment his portraits would immediately and radically change and Nahui Olín's clearly indicates that. Amy Conger, in Edward Weston: Photographs writes that This picture was the most direct and timeless portrait Weston had yet made. The physical and psychological distance between the photographer and subject had been reduced to a minimum. ...Proportionally, she occupies more of the picture space than any person he had photographed. He shows her cracked lips, the pores in her skin and her randomly and roughly cropped hair. ...It is, without question, one of the most revealing portraits of Weston's entire career. (op. cit.)