"US Airways Flight 1549 Crash Coverage"

"MIRACLE ON THE HUDSON"

Well I spent Saturday in Battery Park New York City to cover the recovery of flight 1549 which went down in the Hudson River. I arrived around 5:20am because I checked the weather report & I wanted to take advantage of the clear weather expected and the Sunrise that comes with it. If you've never been in NY City when the sun comes up it's an incredible experience to say the least. Everything is dark, quiet & peaceful and as the sun rises the city comes alive with magnificent color, light & energy. The temperature was 2'F, the air was crisp and I was EXCITED to be there!

I spent my time in the darkness to ready my body & equipment for the cold and the story I was covering. At these temperatures batteries take the most beating so I had brought 6 camera batteries & 3 sets of (8) AA's for my MD10 battery pack, good thing I did because I used MOST of them before the day was over. I started walking around the site and taking in the scenery along with introducing myself to several of the police officers guarding the area. After identifying myself to the outer perimeter cops as a retired officer I was allowed to enter the area with a premium parking space only 50' from the plane! I'd like to thank ALL the NY City Police officers who I met yesterday; they were a fantastic group of professionals and treated me with a great deal of respect & allowed me to roam anywhere I wanted as long as the area was safe.

I started shooting some night scenes of the city & surrounding area along with Jersey City which is a stones throw across the river. I found a lot of cool buildings to shoot, art forms, boats etc. After about 90 minutes or so of walking around I had to make a trip back to the car to warm up and dump some of the heavy gear I was toting around. I was frozen to the bone and needed some warm coffee, something to eat and HEAT! I started tearing opening & activating some of my hand toe warmer pads, stuffing them in my gloves, socks, pockets well everywhere LOL. This routine took place about every 60 minutes or less for the 12 hours I was there. I went through an entire case of 24 hand warmers & 3 sets of toes warmers but they were a life saver and without them I would have never made it.

The NYPD officers allowed me entry into the press pool & both press boxs which had the best vantage point to photograph the event but unfortunately after 12.5 hours of waiting my body had enough & was giving out on me. My back was in terrible pain and there was still no idea of when they would pull the plane out since the time had been pushed back every hour from 10am to 11 to 12 and so on and at 5pm they didn't know if they would complete it at all Saturday because the plane had filled with ice flow that had gathered at the shore line and now weighed over 1,000,000 pounds !!! Yes 1 MILLION pounds of total weight those 2 huge cranes had to pull out of the river. In the end I watched it on the news at MIDNIGHT when they finally got it out and loaded it onto the barge. I would have never made it another 7 hours plus I ran out of hand/feet warmers and had no winter long johns on my legs.

I had a 'Fantastic' time, met, hung out & talked with a LOT of wonderful emergency workers, photographers from around the world & every agency you could think of like the NY POST, ASSOCIATED PRESS, USA TODAY, TIME MAGAZINE, News anchors from ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX, CNN, MSNBC and got some really great shots to boot!. A HUGE Thanks You to all the Great Professional NYPD Officers for granting me ALL ACCESS to the crash site, Stay Safe Brothers !!

The Full Gallery of Images shot can be seen here http://billpador.smugmug.com/gallery/7127737_aMMBQ/1/457123150_8kCRE

Thanks & Enjoy!~Bill~

Fashion Show Booked

"Fashion Show Week"

I finalized the booking as the exclusive photographer of the Jefferson Township High School Charity Fashion Show for the 2nd year in a row so I'll be shooting that the 1st weekend of February. Last year was a lot of fun (*see blog entry February '08) and I was really surprised at how well the kids acted & responded to being photographed. In my experience teenagers are not the easiest models to deal with because they just don't want to be bothered but every single youngster was cooperative and listened to direction very well along with actually having FUN with it. So needless to say I'm looking forward to this event once again and hopefully can make some new friends along the way.

Well the last week has been a lot of fun photography wise around here. We've had a snow storm and 2 ice storms in the last week enabling me to get some fantastic macro shots during the ice storm, the images can be seen in my Weather Gallery located in the Landscape Section of my web site. I fired up the Nikon D300 with one of my favorite lenses the Tamron 90mm f/2.8 Di 1:1 Macro and headed out into the frozen world around me. I didn't have to go far to get the shots I wanted (how's the front yard sound) and since it was so cold I didn't want to travel any farther LOL.

I spent a lot of time snow blowing my drive & walk way because mother natures is hammering the East Coast this year with the white stuff but I guess we were due for a heavy winter since the last few have been kind of mild. For me winter is hit or miss for landscape shooting because I prefer warmer weather with more color in the mountains so I can go hiking & free my mind while I do what I do best, shooting 1000's of frames a week. But I can't say winter is all bad because I do develop new techniques in the digital dark room with all my free time and have fun in the Still Life Studio, so all is not lost. I'm still counting the days till spring though, for me it can't come fast enough!

I've got my entry in for the '2008 Photograph of the Year' contest over at photographycorner.com for the 3rd year in a row and hopefully I can place in the top 10 to win some really cool prizes and get my work out in the public eye across the globe again. It's a tough competition with lots of great artists entering so I have my work cut out for me but I have a great entry this year and that's this portrait of my youngest daughter that I shot on a whim one late afternoon in my living room and it has been the #1 rated image on my web site since the day I posted it rated by my visitors, fans and fellow artists. I just happened to come up out of my studio for a break and to look outside to see if we were going to have a photo op on the sunset and this awesome ray of light coming through the front window caught my eye. So I made my daughter get up off the couch for a couple quick shots with her staring out the window. It was shot in all natural light and the glare coming off her beautiful green/blue eyes was just awesome. The only thing I regret is being lazy and shooting it with my basic all around Nikkor 18-200mm VR lens instead of swapping it our for my 50mm f/1.8 or f/1.4 portrait lens or even the Tamron 90mm f/2.8 Di lens, all 3 would have been a much better choice in glass and given me a sharper image BUT I was very surprised at the clear, sharp & crisp shot I pulled off with the 18-200mm which is not known for it's portrait work. If I remember correctly I set it at 105mm which is a length where it shines so I guess I shouldn't cry about it. Maybe it was meant to be because it's become one of my All Time Favorite captures I've taken in 30+ years behind the lens. It's just a very special image for me and just happens to be of my lovely daughter who is also one of my favorite models because she's so beautiful & cooperative when asked to photograph her. OK so I'm a little biased being her dad but the stats don't lie on the web site and it's popularity among other photographers let me know that was my entry for this years contest. I'm keeping my fingers crossed and now I'll just have to wait to see what happens when the voting starts tomorrow on 1/14/09.

If you want to vote for my image, please sign up at www.photographycorner.com and make at least 5 posts in the forums to be eligible to vote. I appreciate all the help I can get and it's a fantastic web site for photographers and has a ton of great resources to learn if your studying photography!

Well this entry has come to a close and I look forward to another great year here at Bill Pador Photography Studio - Thanks for stopping by to read my blog and don't forget to leave your email address (*on the right) so you can receive notification via email when I make another blog entry. If I don't make an entry you don't get an email, I don't send any SPAM or Junk mail and I DO NOT sell or give your email information to anyone, just a quick notification that a new entries been posted and that's it, Period !

Have a Great Week & I'll be talking to you soon,
Best Regards,
~Bill Pador~

NEW Black & White Gallery

I recently started gathering a collection of my B&W images and uploaded them into their own gallery now to show case the world as I see it in B&W which is fascinating to me. Communicating what I as an artist wants to via images in B&W is much tougher then when we use color and you enter a whole new world without color. Controlling the mood and message is so much more interesting when you have to do it in B&W so I figured I would share this world in one place for you to enjoy. So feel free to click on this link www.billpador.smugmug.com/photography and enter the new B&W gallery to view the images. I'll be adding to it quite often until I have my full collection in there which will take some time as it's quite large at this point in my life but will be well worth the visit. Thanks & Enjoy !

~Bill~

"HAPPY NEW YEAR"

Well another year has been put into the books and I just wanted to wish all of my Clients, Guests & Fellow Artists a Very Happy & Prosperous 2009. Many great things have occurred for me in 2008 and I am looking forward to the continued growth & success of Bill Pador Photography for the coming year. I've enjoyed many of my images being published, chosen as winners in various contest through out the world, chosen as Editors Picks on some great web sites like http://www.photo.net/ http://www.webshots.com/ along with magazines like Outdoor Photographer choosing my images as winners & finalists. More importantly I have shot some great events, parties, weddings & portraits for some of the best clients a photographer could work for, what more could an artist ask for during a years time.

I've also enjoyed the huge growth of my web site and the many visitors I receive each & every day to check out my Photo of The Day project along with the wonderful comments I receive on my works. Thank You ALL for your support, it means a lot to me!

"ATTENTION Nikon D300 & D3 OWNERS"

An IMPORTANT side note to all U.S.A. Nikon D300 & D3 Owners, if you were not aware Nikon has just released Brand New FIRMWARE Updates to both camera bodies that fix or upgrade many issues along with adding on some great software to your cameras (*release date 12-16-08). The D300 has been upgraded to version 1.10 on both the A & B channels and the D3 was upgraded to version 2.0 on both as well. Some of the more important fixes were to the Auto Focus system making it BLAZING fast to set & lock on especially in the 51 point area and in low light. they added a new built in Copyright box to embed your copyright information in the EXIF. ISO sensitivity settings in the menu can now be taken up to 1 sec. to 1/4000 instead of the lame 1/250 it was before. The focus acquisition performance in the Dynamic & Contrast modes has been improved dramatically and to top it all off the Auto White Balance is now pretty much dead on instead of having a yellow hue that was sometimes seen. Much more has been added so for the full listing of improvements and the firmware Make sure you head to http://www.nikon.com/ for your FREE firmware upgrade now, it's well worth the download !!

Best Regards,

Bill Pador