This first photograph Weston made upon his return to Point Lobos after his extended hiatus left an indelible mark on him. He was thrilled at the prospects of abstraction. In his Daybook he recorded on Thursday, March 21, 1929: Point Lobos! I saw it with different eyes yesterday than those of nearly fifteen years ago. And I worked, how I worked! And I have results! And I shall go again, - and again! I did not attempt the rocks nor any general vista: I did do the cypress!...But no one has done them - to my knowledge - as I have, and will. Details, fragments of the trunk, the roots,- dazzling records, technically superb, intensely visioned..
Amy Conger, in her research on this image, quotes Nancy Newhall in a letter to Weston describing the print offered here: That early Lobos cypress, horizontal, filling the frame, that feels like a moving wall, or a waterfall...Terrifying thing. Weston's inscription on the reverse of the mount is mentioned.