I shot this image 19 days after Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast. It was while editing this that I listened to the story of the unlikely emergence of a 71 year old gentleman from the flooded 8th Ward of New Orleans...18 days after the deluge! The sudden significance of the unexpected single living being among all that was presumably dead leapt out of this photo of a single clematis bud emerging many weeks after the last blossom of summer had faded and fallen. It became a symbol of hope for survival after that moment.