Abstraction can often create mystery. It asks questions of the viewer, allowing their imaginations to enter an image and come up with their own answers. This is such an image. We had just finished our shoot in Singapore, but I always have a camera in hand when I travel, just in case an opportunity presented itself. I was standing in an arcade in front of our hotel waiting to leave for Malaysia when I saw a woman carrying an umbrella enter the far end of the arcade and walk towards me. A triangle of light illuminated a wall at the end of the arcade, which complemented the geometric panels and a circle of light on the floor. Tropical plants hang overhead and cast their shadows in the circle on the floor. We have both a tropical and cubistic context for the lady with the umbrella, who is abstracted in mysterious shadow. The umbrella incongruously seems to be protecting her from that that triangle of light. Using my multiple imaging button, I kept firing shots as she walked ever closer. Suddenly a man stepped into the triangle of light at the back of the arcade. Far from spoiling my concept, he enhances it by thrusting out his arm and looking at his watch. His arm and hand leads us to the free arm and hand of woman, and we note the energy crackling in the negative space between that hand and her dress. She comes towards us, while he looks away. Her elbow stops just short of the edge of the triangle, while his hand stops just short of the shadow around it. This scene is charged with such tensions. The mystery woman, swathed in darkness, is frozen forever in mid-passage, as is the gesture of a man she never sees. The rest is left to our imagination. When I lightened this image and removed much of the abstracting shadows, I could see the expression on the woman’s face, note the fabric of her dress, even see polka dots on the inside of the umbrella. Without these deep shadows, the image shows too much and says too little. When I restore the shadows, the image is bathed in mystery. Such is the power of abstraction.