It is a simple image of a man walking down a flight of stairs. Yet the interplay of light and shadow, and the reflections in a nearby series of windows, extend those stairs and window frames into a complex arrangement of rectangles. They create a symbolic cage that appears to cause the man to pause for an instant to get his bearings and search for a way out. He is deeply shadowed, and becomes a universal symbol of someone caught in a maze. My camera freezes him there, leaving him in frustration. By showing less of both him and his surroundings, I am able to say more about him as a symbol of confusion and bewilderment. Such is the power of photographic abstraction.