First styling on this Arizona cypress. Am contemplating taking the first branch on left off. Would love to get Josh's opinion on this one

Agree, that's the right choice! Looks much better. I still feel like there is too much going in middle of the foliage mass. There looks to be a lot of branches coming from the one area.

I think you are on the right track in removing that first branch, my though behind that is because you have a thin slender trunk the tree would benefit from having most of its foliage higher up in the tree, this will make it look more proportional.