Photo of the Day Feb. '09 - Welcome to Bill Pador Photography! Professional Photographer Serving NJ-NY-PA Weddings - Sweet 16 Parties

Welcome to the February Photo of the Day Gallery. Winter is in full swing and the most popular color outdoors right now is WHITE with some GRAY mixed in. I can't wait for spring so that I have some colors to photograph, but for now I guess I'll concentrate on some indoor macro & still life work.

Next month will mark ONE YEAR of posting my Photo of the Day project and it's been a wonderful year indeed. I've made so many great friends and have a ton of new fans of my work that visit on a daily basis. I've had a lot of fun with this project and plan on doing it for another year. It's not the easiest thing to do posting a photo every day and is a challenge, but that's why I like it. Thank for all the great comments on my work and I hope you stick around for another year of daily images.

Best regards,
~Bill Pador~
Editor in Chief

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Bill Pador > "Wardrobe Malfunction"
Ask Me How LONG I walked Around like This PLEASE ? ROTFL ! ! !

OK so this is not a Work of Art - It is a TRUE 'DAILY' entry and a very FUNNY one at that :) I knew there was a TINY hole near the top of the rear left pocket of my jeans but in no way, shape or form did I have any idea that they would TEAR as if they were a sheet of paper. Some time during my night out shopping I must have sat down in my car and the pants gave way to a HUGE tear that you see here. I went to SEVERAL stores during the evening and all of a sudden while walking outside I felt this WEIRD feeling of COLD air BLASTING through a place it wasn't supposed to be, my Rump Shaker LOL. So in the parking lot I reached around to find this GAPPING hole 5" long and WIDE OPEN for the world to see my under garment (glad I wasn't going commando) I pulled my shirt down as far as it could go, held my hand over it and made a bee line for my vehicle, laughing hysterically ! I don't know how long I walked around like this nor do I know how many people walked behind me laughing their @** off, I know I would have, but you think someone would have been kind enough to notify me that all my glory was hanging out, NOT!

Normally I have an extra set of cloths in the car but tonight was not one of those nights LOL. So I had to cancel the rest of my plans and head for home. This is the story of the jeans that went wrong & just gave up. . . . Hope you got a laugh out of this, I sure did !!! PP is a few runs threw TOPAZ ADJUST to give it some extra texture (like it needed it) LOL Have a great day everyone . . . .Bill is out ! LOL I'm choking on my own saliva laughing :)

PS: Thank You for all the wonderful & funny comments left on this image today ! Photography & Arts Power is usually judged at how well it brings about emotions & feelings to the viewers be it good, bad or controversial. This certainly had many great emotions flying around from it's viewers so I can say this simple piece was a great success and I am honored that so many of you found so much humor in it and the story behind it, Thanks !
~Bill~

Bill Pador > This abstract was shot while I was fooling around in the still life studio the other night and is SOTC. The word 'FILTER' comes from the small Halogen light I was using to highlight this wine glass and is on the glass in front of the bulb. The word was able to reflect off of the wine in the glass and thought it was pretty cool that the colors of the wine changed so much from this lighting technique. It is a red wine but when shot at an angle it changed to various shades of red with the yellows & oranges coming through as well. I hope you enjoy this one, it's a little different from my usual work but being different is what it's all about right !

Thanks to all of you who have emailed me since my illness, you have all brought great joy to my heart knowing that so many of you care so deeply about me & my health. I've been a little slow the past few days because of my back injury but today is a GOOD day finally and I'm feeling wonderful today. The cold weather here in New Jersey is getting tough to handle and I'm really looking forward to Spring, it just can't come fast enough. Hopefully one of these years I'll be able to move to Florida and not have to worry about the cold anymore, it's one of the things that affects my disabilities the most and if I move to a warmer climate I'll have much less health problems (I hope LOL). For all of you who are chronic pain patients like me always remember that you can email me when your feeling down and need someone to talk to, I fully understand how it can affect your emotions and I've learned some things on how you can turn that negative pain into positive emotion using photography. Hope you are all having a fantastic day and now I'm off to comment on your images ! Thanks Daily Group, you guys are the BEST friends a man could ever ask for !!!

~Bill~

Bill Pador > Good Afternoon everyone, I shot this sky because of the blue color it had just prior to sunset and liked the tree silhouettes, it just had me staring into the sky for some reason and praying for spring to come SOON. Hoping you all have a wonderful day and may all your dreams come true !

Best Regards,
~Bill~

Bill Pador > Good Afternoon everyone - I wanted to Thank You all for your wonderful comments & emails on yesterdays wine glass image, I had no idea it would be such a hit LOL so I decided to add another one from that series I did today. Also Thanks for your well wishes, I think I finally kicked the stomach virus and was able to eat like a pig all day yesterday and the food tasted sooo good :) Funny how such a small microscopic bug can make you feel so sick and from your responses there have been others who have suffered from this same sickness in the recent weeks, not something I wish on anyone that's for sure.

Project "Smiling Joe" is coming along and I'm still working some things out, hopefully within the next 2 weeks or so we'll try to get this kicked off and start his trip around the globe. Thanks for all your help & interest and I'm sure this is going to turn out great. I'm still putting together some more information and once it's complete everyone who is enrolled will receive an update.

Have a Great Day !
~Bill~

Bill Pador > Sorry I've been MIA for a few days over the weekend friends, I feel ill to some kind of stomach virus that lasted 48 hrs. and had my head stuck to a pillow and my knees on the bathroom floor for quite some time. Don't know where I caught it but it was not something I'd like to do again any time soon. Not eating for 3 days tends to zap every bit of energy you have and not being able to get on the dailies hurts worse LOL. But I'm back and feeling fine once again, so I have some catching up to do on all your images tonight.

I shot this half wine glass under low light in my still life studio just prior to getting ill and was having a grand old time doing it too. Maybe I should have taken a sip while I was at it LOL. I used a few small halogen lights and one hand held to manipulate the light to where I liked it to get the shot while using a cable release.

Hope you are all having a great start to your week so be sure to take a minute to smile at yourself, your are the most important person in your life you know, so take a second to be kind to yourself ;)

~Bill~

Bill Pador > I was playing around in my Still Life Studio tonight and happen to find a really nice looking tomato in the fridge, so I decided to shoot it for one of my subjects tonight. I used an old nasal spray bottle with water & a drop of blue food coloring (to bring the detail of the drops out more) and the background is my waste paper basket which is like an iron mesh behind it. The tomato sat in a plastic cup to bring the height up to match the mesh part I wanted to put it in front of. Then I took 2 small clip on halogen lights below the tomato shooting straight up to back light the tomato, 1 desk light from above & behind, 1 light at 5 o'clock shooting up/back to give that small highlight on the lower right, then I dialed in a custom white balance to change the hue of the light to get the basic colors you see. I managed to get a blue & reddish color out of it that way but kept the tomato nice & red without changing it's color.

Oh BTW this was shot in RAW format so I had full control in LightRoom, Once in Lightroom I did normal sharpening & contrast adjustment, adjusted the black level and boosted the hue of the blue to purple and the reddish orange hue a bit but couldn't move the sliders much or it screwed up my tomatoes color. I also adjusted the yellows which brought out the water drops a bit more and gave them some punch since the white balance I used made the light reflection of the water drops on the yellow side which was good to bring the drops to life. I also added a slight edge darkening & vignette to tone down the edge colors, then saved it.

I actually have a few more shots I'm going to post in my EXTRAS gallery tomorrow of a few different items I was playing with like a wine glass, wine bottle & glass and a dried out leaf I saved from fall time. I'll let you know when their done & posted ;)

Oh I almost forgot - "I WON the contract for the Junior Formal at the High School in May", I guess my work spoke for itself over the others, so Thanks for all your support & well wishes on that one. I'm very proud to have gotten that contract, it will give me a chance to show off my work to a lot of high school kids & parents this year.

Have a Wonderful Thursday everyone, here it's been snowing all day & night. Only have about 2" but it's that wet heavy crap and everything is a mess now. Hope your bathing in the sun where you are ;)

~BILL PADOR~

Bill Pador > "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~

Bill Pador > "Smiling Joe Project - A HUGE Hit"
I would have never guessed that the Smiling Joe Project would become such a huge hit, but is has! With over 45 stops now scheduled for Joe he will have himself a very busy Spring & Summer. Besides every corner of the United States he will also be traveling overseas to - Canada, The United Kingdom, France, Belgium & India !

I wanted to Thank You ALL very much for your support & excitement for this project and look forward to how interesting not only the images will be but also to the story that will be created from your journal entries, especially now since JOE will have a travel companion "Shorty" Thanks to Angela Davis introducing me to her similar desk top good luck charm, which can be : SEEN HERE I have spent countless hours trying to put together the logistics of the project including a mailing list, maps, vacation schedules and ideas. I never knew it would be so involved but I am always up for a challenge and I have certainly given myself a good one this time LOL.

After weighing some different ideas of how to work this out, I've decided on the following changes to make this easier on everyone involved (especially ME LOL):

1) Instead of having a PLANNED route, the person who has Joe will contact several participants in their area and send him to the person who is ready to receive him. This way if someone is going on vacation on a certain date they can get him for their vacation or pass him up to the next person until their ready.

2) Instead of sending a Note Book Journal with JOE I've decided to use the magic of the internet, so all you will have to do is send me an email or Word Document with your journal entries, this way all I have to do is Copy & Paste it into a main Word Document to create the story. This will also keep the weight down on the box to bare minimum and there will be less things to lose in case of a post office disaster. This also enables me to have the story images & journal entries IN HAND to keep the Story Gallery updated every few days so everyone can follow his trip in LIVE Time. To me this is a lot more interesting then having to wait !

I plan on sending out a mass email with all the details to those who have signed up ni the near future with all the pertinent information you will need. Oh before I forget, I have created an email address just for this project where all of your email pertaining to this will be sent, this way I can keep everything in one place for organizational purposes. The new email address is - smilingjoeusa@gmail.com - So please make a note of this in your address books. When ever you have to email me about this project please just place - SMILING JOE - in the Subject Line so that they automatically get routed into a special folder in my email program I have created.

The SMILING JOE 'STORY GALLERY' has also been created and can be found here: http://billpador.smugmug.com/Galleries
This is where all of the images, story and anything else to do with Joe's journey will be posted !

Thanks again everyone, I hope to get this off the ground in the next 2 weeks so get your creative ideas flowing in your head, this is gonna be a BLAST ! Any questions, feel free to email me at the new address !

~Bill Pador~

Bill Pador > "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~

Bill Pador > I caught this moon silhouette last night after seeing how cool the moon light looked creeping through the trees. It looked so eerie to me and reminded me of a horror movie. I shot this hand held bracing it against my knees while sitting on a chair. Then used NIK Silver Efex to convert it to full B&W and adjust the brightness & contrast. Then I added a slight Gaussian blur & hit it with some Imagenomic Noiseware, then finished with a small keyline frame.

PS: Has anyone been having problems accessing my site in the last 24 hours ? I received an email late last night saying my site was down but when I woke up there seemed to be no problems. Thanks

Enjoy your day all !
~Bill Pador~

Bill Pador > Here's the new 'Saitek' back lit keyboard I bought yesterday. It is so easy to type with and is much more comfortable on my wrists then the cheap Dell one that came with the computer. It has a few extra buttons for volume control/mute etc. and buttons to operate your media software without having to go on the screen which is convenient. I created this artistic layout of the 3 colors your able to change the back light to on the fly with the push of a button making it very cool looking. I used OnOne's Photo Frames Pro 3.1 Exclusively for 100% of this creation with all the colors, shapes & borders etc. coming from stacking 25 different frames, twisting & turning them and adding different colors. Pretty cool plug in if you get a chance to try it.

I just got the NEW version 4.0 of OnOne's Photo Frames but haven't installed it yet, can't wait to try it out ! I'll let you all know how it is once I have it loaded tonight.

PS: Has anyone been having a problem accessing my galleries over the past 24 hours ? I received an email saying my site was down and would like to confirm, Thanks Bill

Best regards,
Bill

Bill Pador > "Dried Flower Oil Abstract"
I was feeling artistic tonight so I headed off on a scavenger hunt in my house to try and find something worthy of an artistic hit. I stopped at my dried flower arrangement that graces the entrance of my home to shoot this oil abstract. It went through several filters to create the final image to include - TOPAZ 'ADJUST & SIMPLIFY' - FOCAL POINT - PHOTO TOOLS - NIK COLOR EFEX PRO 3.

I must be feeling sympathy pains in my back because of John (loquk) because I'm not feeling too comfortable tonight plus I got one of my very few headaches tonight as well. After taking some pain meds and some Advil I dozed off into a 2 hour nap but when I woke up I felt much better. My headache is 90% gone and the back is feeling 50% better. It's probably the result of staying up 2 nights in a row to complete post on the fashion show images but I finally got them done and have started the upload which I hope to complete tonight. I got a lot of great shots to share with the participants and think they will be very happy with the results.

I went back to Best Buy today and got my $70 refund back since the new Epson photo printer I bought went on sale less then 24 hours after I bought it for $70 less. I didn't walk out of the store with the money though, I spotted a new SAITEK back lit key board that I wanted on sale for $71, so I bought that and had to take $1 out of my pocket LOL. To me it was like getting it for free since I had already spent the money on the printer any way. This keyboard is very nice and is making it much easier for me to type FAST with a lot less energy to press the keys plus it looks awesome since it has 3 different back light colors you can change with the push of a button. I have a great idea for tomorrows image to show off my key board, so stay tuned for it LOL !

Have a great day everyone, thanks for all the great comments on my images the last few days!

~Bill~

2/27/09 - OK So you all had me Laughing ALL Day & Night Long with the funny comments you left on my WARDROBE MALFUNCTION image of my ripped jeans, I was amazed at how many of you have gone through the same thing and that we could all relate to such a funny event taking place with some simple material that is supposed to last many moons LOL :> So Thanks for all the smiles & giggles I got from your comments. To me THAT is what Photography & Art is all about no matter what the image may be of, to cause such a reaction and/or emotions of laughter & silliness among people who look at your work means a total success to me. I'm happy to report that I went out shopping AGAIN tonight and was able to replace those old jeans with 3 brand new pairs so I won't have to worry about having my BUM hanging out for some years to come again LOL. Really 'Thanks Everyone' Because I was not having a good day yesterday until I started reading those comments and it brought me into a much happier place !

Today's capture is the result of feeling artsy fartsy today and is a shot of the side of a cheap planter stand I have made of white plaster with Roman type statue carvings on it. I took a MACRO shot of this woman's upper torso @ 1:1 from about 3" from it to bring it into life size and used various small lights to create & capture the depth of the carving to make it look like a statue. I wish I could bring you through the Post Production process that made it look like it is now but it is really IN DEPTH with multiple layers, textures laid into & over it to create shadows like the light was coming through a window with tree branches in front of it, some movement techniques, a few runs through NIK 'Silver Efex Pro' using different variations of a B&W filter I created, Focal Point, Photo Tools, Topaz Adjust along with some Dodging & Burning, Curve & Tone adjustments blah blah blah. My goal was to make it look like an old Roman Statue put on canvas. I hope I captured the feel of what I was shooting for in your eyes, please let me know your honest opinion on this one because I want to use this technique on client photos in the future when the need arises for this type of finish !

Have a WONDERFUL Weekend everyone and "May All Your Dreams Come True"

~Bill Pador~