How can I make the Finder on my MacBook Pro recognize my iPad as a device?

I need to transfer images from my iPad to my MacBook Pro while preserving "file created" date and time information. Trying to do this using iPhoto has not been working for Vertical *****, since the program auto-rotates the images and marks them as created at the time they are imported. I would prefer to copy the images directly from the iPad to the MacBook Pro, but the iPad is not recognized as a device by the laptop's Finder, even though iTunes and iPhoto detect it. Any advice?