In the early 1970s when I was beginning to explore the East End of Long Island I constantly rode around in my car looking for things to photograph. One fall day in 1974 I was driving down Ocean Road in Bridgehampton and came across a very large mansion that had recently become a "fat farm"--the term used way before all the fitness type spa propaganda we've come to know. The street in front of the building was, and still is, lined with trees. Very old trees. A number of them had areas of decay in their trunks and one in particular simply hypnotized me. I came back a year later to re-photograph the tree, but all the decayed trunks had been filled with tar.