Groundhog Day magic

February 2nd – the magical day when the world’s attention turns to a little town in western Pennsylvania where an over sized rodent predicts whether spring will arrive early.

I had the opportunity to witness the fun and festivities in 2003. My goal was to capture the essence of the celebration in just one photograph. A monumental task when you discover all the cool things going on around Punxsy (that’s what the locals call their town) during the week surrounding the great prognostication (prediction).

Although I created a photo that captures the spirit of the day; it required three different photos blended together in Photoshop to create the image seen here. I first took the photo of local high school boys on stage as they “entertained” the 25,000 spectators at Gobbler's Knob. About 18 minutes later – the fireworks were set off. In fact, the fireworks were in a different part of the sky – not over the stage. After I overlaid the fireworks over the boys, I had to digitally “erase” some of the fireworks so they wouldn’t appear to be exploding right in front the boys.

This year's festivities may be the best yet as they celebrate their 125th “Groundhog Day.” For more information, visit the official Groundhog Day website.

As a side note, I found that battling the photographers who came from around the world for best photo position was worse than photographing Jimmy Carter's arrival in Cleveland for the Presidential Debates in 1980!