Error when try to transferring data from a hard drive formatted in NTFS to a hard drive formatted in Mac OS Extended (Journaled)

So I recently got a MacBook Air. I am a photographer so I have A LOT of images and I'm having a lot of difficulty trying to get my images onto a hard drive that is 'workable' with Mac (not just readable. I need to be able to make changes). This has been my process:

1. I have all my photos backed up on a hard drive that was formatted for my old windows computer. This hard drive is formatted with NTFS. All the data that is on here isn't necessarily on my windows computer so that is why I can't try to copy directly from the computer to the drive that's formatted for Mac (and there isn't enough space on my computer to transfer the data back onto it and then onto a new hard drive).
2. I want to be able to work with the hard drive from my Mac so I thought that I would copy all the data across to a drive that is formatted with Mac OS Extendable (Journaled). I'm doing this through my Macbook. The data transfer gets about half way and then it says "The Finder can’t complete the operation because some data in “DSC_2695-2.JPG” can’t be read or written. (Error code -36)".

Please help with suggestions on what I should do?

Thank you very much