Welcome to Bill Pador Photography! Professional Photographer Serving NJ-NY-PA Weddings - Sweet 16 Parties - Portraits

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"Welcome To Bill Pador Photography"
WEDDINGS * PARTYS * PORTRAITS * EVENTS * FREELANCE

WHAT'S NEW @ BPP:

Check out my NEW

* SPECIALS PAGE *

Bill is presently running specials on WEDDINGS - SWEET 16 PARTIES - PORTRAIT SESSIONS. These are Limited Time Offers & Dates are filling up quick, So book your event NOW before it's too late !

* PHOTO ART 4 SALE *

Gallery, where you can purchase Original art created by Bill Pador to hang on your wall!

- NEW GALLERY: Check out my
PHOTO OF THE DAY
Here you will find a New shot Everyday & you'll never know what it will be 365 Days a Year! They will all contain a brief description of How & Why they were shot and description of the Post Production work that goes into them. Interesting, Inspiring & Informational! "Check back everyday to see the new photo" !

"Follow Me Live on TWITTER Now" - For full details read about it on my NEWS PAGE

Bill Pador. Photography. Morris County.New Jersey (973) 208-1585

Featured Galleries

"Photo of The Day" June '09 : Welcome to my JUNE '09 Photo of the Day Gallery. I got off to a SLOW start this month due to business obligations and didn't post my first image until June 19th but I'm BACK in the saddle and will be doing my daily posting from now on. Unfortunately (or Fortunately depending how you look at it) Paying Clients come first and I was VERY busy this month and haven't had a weekend off in almost 5 weeks now. I had to process over 5000 images in the last 3 weeks so needless to say I didn't have time to do anything for myself. I'm not complaining though because business couldn't be better and I'm doing what I love so I'm a happy camper right now. I'm just glad I can get back to my HOBBY and Daily Image Project now.

** You can now follow me on TWITTER ! ! ! My Twitter Name is - jerzice or you can search my real name as well, so add me and follow my days events live ! ! !
follow jerzice at http://twitter.com

Thanks for your continued support of this project and all your wonderful comments on my work as always they are very much appreciated !Have a GREAT June and be well my friends . . . Best regards, ~Bill~

"Photo of The Day" June '09

Welcome to my JUNE '09 Photo of the Day Gallery. I got off to a SLOW s ...

Updated: Jun 23, 2009 9:01pm PST

Jefferson Twsp. "Junior Formal" PORTRAITS 2009 : Welcome to the Jefferson Township High School Junior Formal PORTRAIT Gallery shot on 5/15/09. For your convenience Photos may be ordered directly from this gallery by using the BUY Button located in the upper right corner above each photo so you can create your own packages by ordering any combination of sizes & finishes. Each order will be shipped directly to your home within a few days.

You may also use the snail mail order form supplied to your child when they bought their even tickets for basic packages. Please be sure supply your Name & Phone # and include the photo FILE NAME(s) located directly below each photo starting with JTHS-??-?, also include how many of each package and the FINISH you would like them to be printed in (ie.) Matt - Glossy.

Each image has been hand finished by Bill Pador along with each one being converted to a unique artistic Black & White version which has the tonal look & feel of an old B&W along with the high key lighting and shadows of a modern day high resolution shot making this a stand out production piece. If you would like any other conversion produced such as Sepia or Selective Color (B&W with color let through such as the flowers, dress etc.) Please contact Bill via email billpadorphotos@gmail.com or by calling the Studio @ (973) 208-1585 to speak about your request. Bill will do any conversions FREE OF CHARGE for you as part of his agreement with the School.

PS: The Images taken during the Dance portion of the Formal will be available by 5/25/09 Please check back for more exciting shots !
If you have any questions, please feel free to email or call and I will help you out to the best of my ability ! Thank You, Best Regards, ~Bill Pador~ Photographer

Jefferson Twsp. "Junior Formal" PORTRAITS 2009

Welcome to the Jefferson Township High School Junior Formal PORTRAIT G ...

Updated: May 18, 2009 12:20am PST

Wedding 'Sample' Portfolio : This gallery contains a very small personal selection of Wedding Photos to display "MY ARTISTIC STYLE" of capturing weddings so you as a client have an idea of how your special day will be recorded in history. The images show some of my artistic techniques, angles & special effects I use. There are so many creative possibilities available to you to show them all, but here are a few popular favorites clients ask for on a regular basis like: Pastel, Black & White, Infrared, Sepia Toning, Selective Color, Embedded Framing and also some custom artistic work created by me.

Now available is the NEW 'HDR' (High Dynamic Ranging) Photography technique that is becoming so popular in main stream photography. This technique is now available by request for your wedding for certain images & situations. 'EVERY' Wedding Package is custom tailored for each client to bring your special day to life so it will be remembered in a special way and to meet every budget.

A lot of these techniques are employed normally and are included with every package so your wedding album will be filled with special effects to make it one of a kind. Any & all questions you have will be covered during one of several meetings that will take place before your wedding day, so feel free to jot them down and ask away when we meet. I look forward to capturing your wedding day so that your memories live for generations to come!

To set up a booking or interview appointment please call or write:
STUDIO - (973)208-1585
Via Email EMAIL BILL PADOR PHOTOGRAPHY

Wedding 'Sample' Portfolio

This gallery contains a very small personal selection of Wedding Photo ...

Updated: May 22, 2008 11:21am PST

Mueller Home Pre Prom Shoot : "Welcome to the Pre Prom shoot taken @ the Mueller Home on 5/4/09
All Images are available for PRINT PURCHASE in various sizes Along with MERCHANDISE & GIFT ITEMS such as MUGS, MOUSE PADS, SHIRTS and LOTS MORE. Click on the 'BUY' button above the photo and choose THIS PHOTO for the individual image or PHOTOS IN THIS GALLERY to choose multiple photos to order prints & gifts. Then choose from the PRINTS, MERCHANDISE or DOWNLOAD tabs for your item(s). Also available under the BUY Tab are *INSTANT* HIGH, LOW & ORIGINAL Resolution Digital Downloads to purchase INDIVIDUAL images and are provided with a USAGE LICENSE (*so you may make your own prints, place on your web site or send via email to friends & family)
(*All prints are made on the Highest Quality Heavy "Professional" Kodak 'Endura' Papers) Not the cheap garbage you get at places like CVS/CostCo etc. These prints will last a minimum of 200 years without fading and are professionally color adjusted to my specifications from one of the countries finest labs so they look like their suppose to as they were shot to keep your treasured memories in tact for several life times!

* * CD's containing EVERY IMAGE you see here from the shoot suitable for emailing to family & friends, internet posting on your favorite social sites like Face-Book, MySpace etc. are available for a special sale price at $40.00 each (Reg. $90). To purchase a complete Image CD please:
EMAIL BILL DIRECTLY with your request and an order form will be emailed back to you or call the studio @ (973) 208-1585 for shipping arrangements

*Please feel free to leave a comment under any of the images displayed in this gallery

Mueller Home Pre Prom Shoot

"Welcome to the Pre Prom shoot taken @ the Mueller Home on 5/4/09 All ...

Updated: Jun 19, 2009 2:21pm PST

Most Popular Photos

"The Road to Color"
10/16/08
While Driving today I got stuck behind a SLOW POKE on the only single lane road leading out of town and was getting frustrated so I jumped off onto this small fire road and was shocked by the colors in this tunnel like ride. it was raining pretty good all day today so there was no sun and nasty puddles everywhere but I was able to snap this by opening my sun roof and sticking the D300 out on constant focus and shot it while doing about 10 mph. I was amazed by the composition I was able to get since I was in the center of the road and being above the car it gave me some extra height then the usual eye view, I think it worked out pretty well LOL.

In post I did a minor contrast adjustment and small crop off the bottom, that's it! I'm enjoying the colors here now but I see them disappearing very rapidly so I'm going to try and get some shots everyday now until their gone. It's supposed to get very cold here starting tonight in the 50's as a high during the day and low 40's to high 30's at night Brrrrrrrrrr. I got some other shots from today to process yet but I will be putting them in my Fall Colors 2008 gallery when there finished.

Hope you all enjoy your day,
Bill Pador

"Those Eyes"
details best seen @ size X3
While walking through my kids TV room last night I noticed a great beam of natural sunlight coming through the front window as the sun was going down and then saw my daughter Alexa's eyes catching the light as well. So I made her get off the couch (I know I'm a terrible Dad LOL) and had her stare out of the window. I should have went to get my 50mm Nikkor or 90mm Tamron for this Portrait to get a sharper image but I was lazy and stuck with the 18-200 VR that was on the body but I think it did a fine job, impressed me really. When seen as large as possible you can see each individual eye lash reflected on her retina, pretty cool!

I then hit this with my normal Portraiture work flow & slight glamour treatment, removed a bunch of small hairs in between the nose, shaped her brows and did some very minor burning to bring out her cheek bone a little bit and that's it. The shadow is all natural just using proper exposure settings and shooting tight to prevent any of the background in the room from showing. Alexa's eyes are usually a nice blue but she was wearing a purple shirt which turns them a wild greenish aqua blue seen here. She's my favorite model and loves to have her photo taken so we both make out on the deal whenever I want to do a portrait to keep my skills sharp ;) I like this one so much I'll be ordering it in a large format lustre print or possibly a canvas to hang on my office wall! ~I just love my kids ~
Hope you all like it, Have a Great Day everyone !

PS: This image has been the #1 Rated photo on my site since it's post date. Please click on the 'Green Thumbs Up' sign over the image if you agree to keep it rated #1

~Bill~

"The Foggy Lake"
I couldn't decide on which version of this image I wanted to put up today so instead of going nuts I decided to place them BOTH in my daily gallery since I was a day behind on my listings anyway. This is the COLOR version that has been processed using NIK COLOR EFEX PRO 3 and then adding some minor Contrast & sharpening. The B&W version of can be seen as the next image in this gallery or if you can here by way of the Daily main page you can CLICKING HERE

Let me know which one YOU like the best !

Enjoy Folks !
Bill Pador

"ICE STORM"
We are in the middle of a 2 day Ice Storm here in North West NJ, it hasn't let up for almost 48 hours now and everything is covered in 1/4" - 1/2" of pure ice making traveling treacherous BUT for a photographer it's an awesome site. I didn't get out to the mountains for some full landscape shots so I walked out to my front yard and got some of my trees, bushes & grass that were pretty cool. A Lot of things look like snake skin like this berry tree. I hope this goes away soon, gotta get ready for the snow storm their calling for on Saturday LOL BTW this was shot hand held using my Tamron 90mm Di f/2.8 1:1 Macro, I love this lens !

PS: I have a bunch more ice storm images shot yesterday in my Weather gallery "CLICK HERE IF INTERESTED" Some really cool macro images came out of this storm !

~Bill~

"The River Flows"
On my way home from an appt. today I stopped at one of my favorite fishing spots on the Rockaway River in my town to grab this capture. Too bad I didn't have a set of waders in my car to get the little water fall that is located just below this scene but I have to be UNDER the bridge I was on in order to get it in the frame LOL. So you'll have to settle for this one.

I love the little water flow control house that is dilapidated here, it adds a nice rigid feel to the scene. I've watched the roof continue to collapse over the years and soon it will just fall in completely. This is one of the best trout spots around here and they stock the river just upstream weekly during trout season from the farm with tags on them so you know if you caught a wild or farm bread fish. The mountain you see in the background is part of the Picatinny Arsenal where they develop & test new weapons for the military.

Anyway, it was an overcast day here as you can see and it really brought some nice contrast into the picture that I liked. I had to make slight levels adjustments to bring the clouds out a bit more and then some selective dodging & burning to the shadow areas but not much more to this one. Oh and a slight filter applied to bring the colors up a bit since it was so dark here. 10 min. of work and it was finished. So I hope you enjoy this next addition to my fall colors month - I hope you all have a fantastic weekend and get out there to enjoy the crisp clean fall air ;)

ALTERNATE VERSION: You can see a second version in SEPIA of this image in my EXTRAS Gallery BY CLICKING HERE

Best Regards,
~Bill~

"Reflection of My 2 Sides"

The Reflection Challenge...01/05/09
The Challenge: Show us your interpretation of the word, "Reflection."
The Participants: Kre8ive, John (300m), Karina Boese, The Curious Camel, Creative Deviance, Johnloguk, Lady Kate, MyKey, Karina Boese, Trevlan, MSpencer, and myself.
The Result: "Reflection of My 2 Sides"

This Self Portrait image was born with the idea of showing my 2 personalities which are the serious business side and the wild, free artistic side. As you all know I'm not one for being on this side of the camera too much but once in a while I feel it's not only my responsibility to join the model side but it's also KINDA fun. I'm always the one at the party or vacation TAKING the pictures but never seem to be IN any of them documenting my place in history so I decided to use this challenge to document a little history at this point in my life. ON the left wearing a Nikon hat & reading glasses represents my serious business side along with the deep involved artist who's passion for photography is nothing short of an obsession. On the right I like to be free, wild and always taking risky chances to allow the other side of my artistic abilities to show and with the mixture of the 2 I become a whole person, blending the 2 halfs together to become who I really am, an artist, photographer, father and middle aged man who has goals & dreams that are still on the horizon ! Thanks for reading & viewing my REFLECTION Challenge image today, it was a LOT of fun and gave me a chance to show & tell a little of who I really am ;)

THE SHOOT: This was created using 2 images taken in the same exact spot, standing as still as possible to change props and then blending the 2 together in layers and masking 1/2 image out for the other on top. The camera is set on a tripod off to the right of the mirror using a remote release, (*the mirror wall is at 45' angle to the camera). Then after 1st shot was taken trying not to move I changed props and shot a 2nd image. This is a TRUE reflection shot and has not been altered in any other way except blending the 2 shots together. A faded white custom vignette was added and then the frame with white keyline, DONE! Total time 38 min. including the shoot which was done in TWO FRAMES oh and a cigarette break!

PS: I put this up a few hours early in case I fall asleep later, I'm bushed LOL

~Bill~

"Spread Your Wings & Fly"
Good evening folks, today was not a good day for me pain wise and really didn't think I was going to be able to come through with a fresh image. But I decided to play around with some macro captures to try and take my mind off being uncomfortable since macro photography takes a lot of concentration in order to get the detail & DOF right. I roamed the house for a while trying to find something fresh that I haven't shot yet to no avail, so I headed outside into my car, everything I shot looked bad to me so I headed back inside then my little buddy 'Oreo' helped me find this very small feather hidden in a dried flower arrangement I have by the front door by rubbing against it and drawing my attention to it LOL

I opened the front door for some natural light and used the bronze door plate as my background to reflect the multi-colored bushes I have out front into the lens which caused the funky colors you see here. The feather is VERY small, about the thickness of a pencil so I got up CLOSE about 3" away and started dialing in the focus hand held. I should have grabbed my tripod but I just wasn't thinking clearly. I shot a dozen frames and headed into Lightroom 2 to see what I had. To my surprise I had a few with decent detail and great DOF so I processed the RAW file then slid over to CS3 for some final touches. I hit it with a small dose of NIK Color Efex BRILLIANT & WARM filter to bring the background colors up a bit, a small dose of sharpening and then gave it the edge frame with OnOne Pro Frames to give it some outside life so the eye would be drawn towards the in focus part of the feather.

The title comes from me wanting to Spread My Wings & Fly Away because I wasn't feeling well. I am doing a little better now but still not too happy so I just took my night pill and plan on laying down for a bit and catching up on some TV programs I have recorded. I'll try to catch up on today's comments in the morning so have wonderful Thursday everyone, may it be a prosperous one for all of you !

~Bill~

OK So I finally got away from playing with my crayons & back to the great outdoors. I was going to take a ride to the Hudson River this afternoon to capture the USS INTREPPID Aircraft Carrier returning from it's 2 year referberation in dry dock to it's new home at pier 86 but I had chores to do like picking my daughters up from school, darn it.

So While searching for a good spot to grab some fall colors I located this side road by my house which leads to a camp ground. It has cobble stone lined roads and the tree color was spectacular with the sun bleeding through the trees in certain areas highlighting the leafs nicely.

We are nowhere near fall colors in full swing yet just selected areas are starting to show the change of season so you have to go and look for them. Thanks for all the great comments on the crayon project maybe I'll revisit them some time in the future again. Hope you all have a wonderful night and look forward to seeing some of your fall color images !

An Apple a Day keeps the Snow Storm Away - - NOT !
3/1/09: Time to baton down the hatches kiddies, We are in for one hell of a ride in the next 12 hours or so, here in New Jersey there is one word we fear and know means business when we hear it and that is: "Nor' Easter" and when they hit they hit with a fury. We are in the beginning stages of an Nor' Easter Snow Storm right now and having only snowed for the last 2 hours we have 3" on the ground already and they are calling for 15"+ in my area in the mountains of North West NJ. I'm NOT Happy about this because of several reasons, one is that the low pressure they bring kills my spinal injury and makes for a rough night sleeping, plus I don't feel like snow blowing anymore LOL Oh well no need in crying about it, it's here and I might as well photograph it tomorrow right ! UPDATE: It's 2:00am and I posted 3 hours ago we had 3" of snow, well in 3 hours it dumped 7" MORE and there is 10" on the ground now, I just measured. OMG this is BAD !@

I found this apple in the fruit bowl tonight and not only did I feel like playing with low light & water but Bill got a New TOY ! OnOne's Photo Frame Pro 4 ! I gotta tell you if you like to play with Frames, THIS is the program for you, with over 4500 stock frames in it and the ability to customize each of them along with stacking up to like 16 frames on top of each other the results are limitless. I just loaded it and took a quick look see and i was like WOW that is a LOT of frames LOL. So I decided to use it on this shot and this is just a basic stock frame that came with it and I blurred the edges (oh you can do that too). I love the reflection of the flash in each water drop in this one.

Look forward to posting some snow shots in my EXTRA gallery later on this afternoon, so for now it's good night and have a great week everyone !
PS: Be sure to read my special message above in my gallery description !

~Bill Pador~

"The Red Barn"
Using the new version of Topaz Adjust 2.6 this red barn found new life. I love the textures & colors this software put out and makes it so easy to grab the Dave Hill look. I found this old barn on the way to drop something off to my daughter at school and stopped in the middle of the street to shoot it LOL. It's actually in someones front yard. We're getting ready for ANOTHER snow storm tomorrow bearing gifts of 6"8" of the white stuff, boy am I tired of this !

Enjoy your Day,
~Bill~

"Blaze & Smile"
Custom Smoke Art by Bill Pador
BEST VIEWED LARGE"
I would like to present an art form that I have created & been working to perfect over the last 6+ months, SMOKE ART. I will be opening a Special Gallery soon as part of my business containing ONE OF A KIND fine art pieces created strictly from Smoke images captured and then used to convey scenes to stir the mind into seeing ghostly objects enabling the owner to have one of a kind conversational pieces to display in their homes. Each smoke image will have a specific theme and are painstakingly chosen for it's content & form to convey what I as the artist am trying to convey with the completed piece. Then the smoke is worked on with certain techniques I've developed to make it come alive. At present they will only be made available on CANVAS and each piece will come with a certificate of authenticity from me as the artist and the smoke captures used to create them will be destroyed upon completion of each piece. I am presently in talks with several companies to also produce them using glow in the dark paints and several other mediums I can't talk about right now.

I'm very excited about this project and have put 100's of hours into perfecting the work flow and artistic vision of this art form. I have searched my entire life for something to make me stand out and I believe I have found the medium to do that with. Hopefully I will be able to make a name for myself in the art word through my pieces and look forward to your comments and thoughts on this project.

Unfortunately because of the work involved in this I will not be sharing the process it takes to create one of these (obviously LOL) but I will say that each piece takes approximately 6+ hours to complete and I do NOT ADD anything to the original photo image captured. I am finally comfortable with all the steps in the work flow to produce stunning art deco abstracts to present to the art community and hopefully it will be accepted with open arms by everyone.

This was one of my final test pieces and it's entitled "BLAZE & SMILE". It was designed after seeing the human skeleton form on the right smiling with his arm appearing to hold a cigarette (or other smoking material LOL) which is making him/her happy. There are many other things going on in this piece but I wanted to point out one designed into it and let YOU the viewer come to any conclusions you may see in here, the concept behind my (and any) art form is to provoke thoughts, feelings & emotion so I would like you to leave your comments on what thoughts are provoked when you study this creation PLEASE.

I will announce the grand opening of the gallery once it's ready HERE to the Daily Community FIRST before I do any real world advertising to get your thoughts because you all have become very good friends of mine and I really honor & treasure your thoughts on my work. Thank You ALL for your support and I look forward to presently my newly created art form to the public very soon.

Best Regards,
~Bill~

"Deep Orange Glow"
I shot this from my front porch During an approaching storm the other night the sun started going down and the colors were bleeding through the storm clouds creating an awesome sky. I shot a hand held 3 frame bracket -1, 0, +1 then brought it into Photomatix to create an HDR, Tone Mapped it and then into CS3 where I adjusted Levels, Curves, Contrast. Then into NIK Color Efex to boost Pro contrast and then finished it off with Imagenomic Noiseware and keyline frame. I just wish I would have grabbed my tripod to make things easier in blending mode but it came out pretty good for hand held anyway.

The Smiling Joe Project is coming along nicely, I've been busy putting together all the logistics of the plan and should be sending out another email to everyone in the next few days with more updates and how this will work for everyone. Don't worry, it's a simple process for you all and nothing but fun involved, it's me who is tearing his hair out right now LOL Not really it's not that bad, just a lot of paper work (which I hate) but once it's all done it will run like clock work (I hope LOL) IN the mean time I've been able to recruit 2 more countries, India & Australia to his overseas adventure. So as of now he will be traveling to "7" different countries on 4 different continents, not bad ! Thanks for every one's participation, I'm VERY excited about the whole thing.

Have a Great Evening Everyone,
~Bill~

"Join a World Wide Experiment"
*(Long But PLEASE READ)*
Hello Everyone, I have been thinking about this project for a LONG time now and I would like to present my idea to you all. First I'd like you to meet my good luck charm, "Smiling Joe" (shot in HDR during a private moment when I caught him reading MY magazine. Everything must have went well, he's SMILING LOL Anyone have a match?). This little fellow has been a part of my business career for the last 12 years and has brought me tons of luck & success with all my business decisions. He sits on top of my desk over seeing the daily operations here at Bill Pador Photography and also my previous business which was Z-Rated Motorsports when I raced cars & sold high performance parts.

What I want to do is to send 'Smiling Joe' on a World Wide Adventure to visit as many corners of the world during the Spring & Summer of 2009 and to have his photo taken at every stop on his journey along with creating a log/diary of his adventure. At the conclusion of his trip he will be placed back in my office where he belongs but will be surrounded by a complete collage of the images along with a copy of his journal for one of the coolest conversational pieces for my clients & friends to read & enjoy and I will also create a special gallery on my site as a promotional piece including everyone of you who participates, including your images, links to your web sites and posting the journal entries that you make while you have 'Smiling Joe' in your possession to create a virtual 'ROAD MAP' of his journey. I will also attempt to submit the full story & images with every one's name & web site to some of the worlds most popular photo magazines who may be interested in doing a story on this experiment ! Think of the possibilities of having your name & web site being seen by 10's of thousands of people. If not for anything else it will be a ton of fun to see how creative people can get with 'Joe' and how many miles he will travel during his journey.
* * If your Interested READ ON * *
My plan is this:
1) Collect a list of fellow photographers who want to be part of this project & be part of history, show off their creativity, have some fun and possibly have their work seen by tons of folks around the world.

2) Once I have a list of artists/photographers who want to participate I will map out "Joe's Journey" and plot the trip trying to make him cross the United States and then head over the pond for his over seas trip and then finally returning to good old New Jersey. The trip will take place over the Spring & summer and hopefully return by Fall.

3) The trip will be documented & mapped out using 'Google Earth' with the total mileage he traveled, the time it took to criss cross the world and other fun statistics. The images will be placed in the gallery in REAL TIME when I get them so everyone can track his journey as it happens !

4) Each photographer will get to have 'Smiling Joe' for minimum of 72 hours and will be responsible for shooting him in various places, such as Historical Landmarks you may live by, Outdoors with scenic back drops such as mountain ranges, extreme weather, at family events such as parties, weddings or even while your vacationing or business trip etc. You will be required to shoot him in at least (3) different locations using your own creativity as your guide so that 'Joe' gets to have a good time while on his trip. Take him horse back riding, take his picture in front of the Golden Gate Bridge or Mountain Range, sitting in a vintage car (Matt), make him part of your cultural celebration, take him out to dinner or your favorite watering hole, just use your imagination & creativity to show 'Joe' having a good time like you would any other friend! LOL The use your own post production techniques to bring the images to life in your own way, then pack him back up in his tiny box and send him off to the next person on the list, simple as that!

5) 'Joe' will travel with a small note book/journal so that you can document what you did with him and how much fun he had while in your company. Again use your creativity while writing the story, make it funny, make it sad, just make it interesting. We have enough characters in the daily group who know how to make us laugh with their own image commentaries so I know it will be an interesting read when it's finished. You don't need to write a book, just a few short paragraphs about what 'Joe' did during his stay with you.

6) Joe has room on his back for each of you to Autograph him, so toss your mark on his back to show he's been with greatness and some of the best photographers/artists & friends in the world that I know.

SIMPLE REQUIREMENTS:
To participate, the only thing you will be required to do is take his photos & email them to me, write a quick story in the journal and send him on to the next person after having him for a few days. I will include a pre-printed mailing list & labels IN ORDER of where 'Joe' is to be sent to next, just pack him up in the same box and ship him to the next artist. It will only cost most of you a few bucks to mail him since he only weighs 67 grams and is a little bigger then a pack of cigarettes. I would need to know who would be willing to be the one to send him over seas which might cost a few extra dollars so I can map out who the last person in the United States will be to have him. Then I would need to know who is willing over seas to send him to the next country once I have the total list of people and what countries he will be traveling to. This will all be worked out before his journey starts to make sure everyone is ok with the small fees. I estimate that shipping will be around $2.00 - $3.00 for each USA participant and maybe $8.00 $10.00 to ship him over seas and/or from country to country.

"IF YOUR INTERESTED"
Please post your Interest here in the comments, Just Post a YES I wanna play and the STATE/COUNTRY you live in for all to see. Then please send ME a personal "EMAIL NOW BY CLICKING HERE" or (billpador@gmail.com) enclose your FULL NAME & MAILING ADDRESS so I can add you to the mailing list and if your willing to ship 'JOE' over seas if your the last one in the U.S.A. or CANADA to get him or from overseas back to the USA and I will send you an email back with more information.

Don't forget to pass this info on to your other SmugMug Buddies !
That's It ! Like I said I have been wanting to do this for YEARS and I have finally planned it all out to make my idea a reality and I would like you all to be part of it. It should be a LOT of fun seeing the gallery of where JOE travels to and where he gets his picture taken and the story book should be a blast to read. I hope you all want to be part of this, lets get this started and have some fun !!!

~Bill~

The Great SILVER BACK GORILLA
Here he is ladies & gents, the endangered Silver Back Gorilla. Photographed at the world famous Bronx Zoo NY City on 7/5/08. I took a trip to the zoo today for the first time in my life for a photo shoot. After living within 60 min. of the zoo for most of my life I thought it was about time I made a visit and see what they had to offer, I must say I had a WONDERFUL time and for a photographer, subject matter is EVERY WHERE to shoot.

The day started off very overcast and I knew I wasn't in for the best conditions but decided to still take the trip. It rained on me from the time I entered the gate until the time I left putting the weather seals of my D300 to the ultimate test, I'm happy to say they past with flying colors and kept the electronics dry as a bone, whew LOL.

This Silver Back Gorilla is one of over 20 they have at the zoo (there are 2 families from what I understand). They are kept in separate sides both of which can be seen from the same observation room and they are only separated by a small electronic fence and some trees. The observation room is below the wooded area which slopes upward in a natural jungle setting. The only draw back is the THICK Plexiglas's partition that you have to shoot through. So that plus the fact that I had barely any light outside from the rain made this a very difficult day of shooting, but the D300 managed it very nicely and confirmed that this is one hell of a camera to say the least. Anyway THIS Gorilla was a real HAM, he was only about 10' away from me most of the 60 min. I photographed his family and really liked having his picture taken. They are SO SMART it's scary and act & move just like humans. They were all pretty cool and loved the attention folks were giving them. One male & female even decided to have a 'NOONER' love making session right in front of us for all to see LOL and brought many LAUGHS & CLAPS during the 60 seconds or so it took them to finish, it was VERY funny and to see some of the parents scrambling to cover their younger kids eyes almost made me spit up my soda (yes there's a shot of that in my zoo gallery too LOL)

I'll find out what this fellas name is and also post some more info on the families in my Zoo gallery that I have posted and hope all of you take a look at it, I worked very hard to get the shots in the gallery and there is some amazing animals in it. I want to share it for the enjoyment of all who don't have the resources to visit such a wonderful place.

Please VISIT MY BRONX ZOO GALLERY HERE and see some great animals like TIGERS, GRIZZLY & POLAR BEARS, Lots of Birds, Giraffe & the Gorilla families (TIP: It's best viewed as a SLide Show so you see each picture enlarged and it's 18 pages long. Sit back and enjoy a cup of coffee while you view it.)
Be sure to give this image a Thumbs Up vote if you like it & Thanks for your comments & visiting my galleries ~Bill~

"The Draw Challenge"...11/03/08
*Please VIEW LARGE to see full detail*
The Challenge: Create a photo with your interpretation of the word, "Draw."
The Participants: Kre8ive, John (300m), Karina Boese, jawsnap, Creative Deviance, and myself.
The Result: My interpretation of this challenge focuses on DRAWING ATTENTION to an image within an image, this being my image titled "Egg_n_Egg" The goal was for me to create a well balanced image that would enable the viewer to be DRAWN to a specific part of the image, this being the Egg WITHIN the Egg. I wanted this to look like a Cooked egg was contained in the egg shell with interesting lighting, shadows & textures using just 2 common objects being 1 egg and a set of high priced silverware that was a wedding present 20+ years ago and never used LOL. So my task was to give the forks a USED & textured look instead of it's new & shiny look so it would fit my final goal of having various textures & contrast instead of a plain flat image. The hardest part was to crack the egg so that I had a nice defined edge which was accomplished by taking a straight razor blade, scoring the egg shell the way I wanted it to look and then using the back of a knife to crack it ever so gently, I managed to get it right the 1st time out! I had to replace some of the egg white which was lost during this conversion with water to float the egg yoke high enough for the photo, then the top shell was placed back on top using the rear fork to support it in the correct position. See I told you there were a lot of details LOL.

Way too many layers & techniques were created for me to describe the process here but I will tell you that I spent a TOTAL Time 6.5 hours from start to finish and created over 60+ layers total. I even had to create my own Gun Metal TEXTURE to age the forks and then a slew of lighting techniques were used in my Still Life Studio for the original shot to have the proper elements for the completed project to look the way I wanted it to. This started life as a 9 image Bracketed HDR shot which was processed & tone mapped in "Dynamic Photo HDR". It proceeded into CS3 for the rest of the processing to include mega layers and custom Dodging & burning to bring all the high lights & shadows out especially in the egg shell cracks and to bring the egg yoke and mass out to look like a cooked egg which is where I wanted your eye to be DRAWN to. This image enabled me to try & create new processing techniques that will definitely help me in the future. So not only did I have fun with this one but I learned a ton of valuable information for business purposes.

Thanks for looking at my "DRAW Challenge" creation, I hope you all enjoy my creativity & hard work on this one.

Best Regards,
~Bill Pador~

"The Coffee Kid"

The Coffee Challenge...01/12/09
The Challenge: Show us your interpretation of the word, "Coffee."
The Participants: Kre8ive, John (300m), Karina Boese, The Curious Camel, Creative Deviance, Johnloguk, Lady Kate, MyKey, Trevlan, Fotoeffects, Hillary, and myself.
The Result: I figured it was time to have some fun with one of these challenges and this one had me laughing my butt off. When setting this one up I started off in my studio and set the Still Life Stage up. Well there wasn't enough room for me to set the lighting up the way I wanted so I brought all my stuff upstairs to my kitchen area and set up on the table. Lighting used was a Nikon SB-600 with portable soft box attached to the left table height @ 7 O'Clock for shadow fill and as the main light SB-800 with mini soft box at 5 O'Clock placed on the floor and aimed upward @ 45'. Both units were triggered using Nikon wireless TTL system. The SB-600 was triggered as a Rear Curtain at 1/8 power and the SB-800 fired straight out @ 1/4 power bouncing 1/2 of the light off the ceiling which is white. A small 2' round white reflector was placed on a chair at 1/2 the height of the table facing the left side of the doll for slight filling purposes. I used my Nikkor 18-200 VR and shot the image from 7 O'Clock from about 3' away with the camera twisted to the right.

Shot in RAW I headed for CS3 Bridge to adjust the Blacks and then into CS3 where a touch of NIK Color Efex was used to boost color slightly and then Focal Point for some addition DOF & Movement Blur were added. Finishing off with OnOne Frames 3 to give it the black custom blurred vignette and then OnOne Photo Tools to add the Black frame & Key line. Total Time Spent was about 40 min. from start to finish !

PS: I had a lot of fun with this because I had a HELPER, my cat Oreo saw the need to hop on the table to SUPERVISE me but he kept knocking the doll & coffee bag over until I asked him to please stop which he did but only after destroying the set just one more time LOL. I laughed so hard during this one that it was worth doing the shoot just for the humor I got from Oreo. I guess the smell of the coffee attracted him to the set but I refused to make him a cup because he's wired enough without having extra caffeine running through his system :) So instead he went over to the Water Cooler and got himself a drink, yes he DRINKS from the Water Cooler by himself and doesn't spill or waist a drop. I shot a frame of him doing his little trick, if you'd like to check it out CLICK HERE

Thanks for looking at my challenge shot this week folks !
~Bill Pador~

Well it's late Sunday night and I'm just started to wind down, relax on the couch and read some more of my SB-900 manual. I just took this short a short while ago of my cat Zena who was hanging out on the kitchen table looking cute just begging me to shoot her image so I obliged. Using the SB900 at full power on camera, bounced off the ceiling left you can see the beautiful soft even light across her face and the perfect slight drop off behind her on the wall shades & NO SHADOW bringing her image to the fore front nicely and a great catch light in her bright eyes. No special settings, EV compensation or gels were used BUT I did wanna try the High Speed Sync FP capabilities so I did shoot this at 1/8000 sec. @ f/5.6 ISO 200 zoomed to 170mm from about 6' away to really push the light and boy I was surprised it was DEAD ON with my planned shot and the light is gorgeous IMO & to push through a 1/8000 sec. exposure - "WOW". *(view @ X2-X3 to appeciate fine details in her eyes & face)
- - "Your Opinion & Comments on the lighting appreciated" ! - -

Tomorrow I will start experimenting with some off camera 2 light shots maybe using some interesting macro still life or even some portraits of my kids to put it through it's paces. To be honest it's just a pure joy to use so I'm very happy with the purchase.

To all of you who have to get up early in the morning to WORK your M-F gigs, have a great day - For those of us who don't, Enjoy the extra sleep dreaming about your your next shot !

~Bill~

Hi Folks, Sorry I've been MIA for the last 4 days but I've been very ill again with my spinal injury taking it's toll once again. Never did I think I would suffer a life long injury like this but it's something that I have to deal with for 8 years now but it sure isn't fun. I'm feeling better today and is the first day I haven't spent laying on the couch wishing for my eyes to shut, I can only describe the pain as something that never lets up and plays with your mind like nothing I'd ever wish on my worst enemy. Hopefully some day they will come up with a cure or special surgery to fix the rest of my nerve damage and the pain all the titanium screws & rods that are in my spine cause me. I often try to think of why this has happened to me and what the reason could be, because I do think that things happen to people for a reason, but I'm sure stumped on this one LOL. I know it's made my life a lot worse in some ways but better in others. One being the time I get to spend with my girls which I didn't get when I was working as a police officer and also has allowed me to pursue my dream of being a professional photographer but other then that I often wonder if it was all worth it in the end. It's also opened my heart & feelings to those who are worse off then me and allows me to see all the good or should I say great people out there that support me in my time of need. I'm sorry for the ramble but it's just been a terrible last few days and as you know I use this place as a sort of life's journal sometimes and I consider you all my friends so why not share the bad with the good right?

I took this shot of an icicle melting on my front porch and it reminds me of my life in a way. Sometimes it's frozen in time when it feels like it will never move again, but then you get that small hint of sunshine that begins to melt the ice away and the water comes back to life again. I hope you are all enjoying life in good health and I look forward to a better week for all of us. For now I'll just have to depend on modern chemistry & medician to ease my pain.

Enjoy your Monday and may all that life has to offer to you spring up to make you smile,

Best Regards,
~Bill~

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Bill Pador Photography is a Member Professional Photographers Association of America Specializing in Weddings - Sweet 16 Parties - Portraits

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