The summer of barbecue

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2015 will go down in my memory for several things, but one part of it is barbecue. I’ve enjoyed cooking and grilling for a while, but never really got into real BBQ as much as I did this year.  It started off innocently enough, looking for good ribs, but after sampling the BBQ that my area of NJ had to offer, I was not happy. Some of you may be wondering what the difference in barbecue and grilling is, or a “cook out” or any number of terms applied to using fire, outdoor, to cook. What I am talking about is low and slow cooking over wood; food that is done when it is done, food that I can’t tell you how long to cook it for, food that I can’t tell you what temperature it has to be, food that is much an art to cook as photography.

I tried smoking a few things on the Weber kettle, but still wasn’t happy, so, around the end of June 2015, I bought a Weber Smokey Mountain to go along with my Weber kettle.

weber kettle and smokey mountain

Since then, I’ve been hooked and have tried the classics like brisket, pork butt (which is really a shoulder not a rump), ribs, both St. Louis Style Ribs and Baby Back Ribs (I prefer St. Louis style), beef short ribs, tritip, flat iron, Turkey and more.

triptip  Short Ribs Apple Rubbed Ribs

The summer culminated with a nice surprise, a podcaster and overall great guy, Victor Cajiao, invited me on his podcast, Terra Tech Podcast. I listened to Victor from his Typical Mac User podcast back when I was switching to them, or more accuretely, adding Macs into my arsenal. Over the years since then, we’ve exchanged tweets and messages on various things mac, photography and lately me making him hungry. I had a great time and conversation with him talking about my barbecue and grilling. Please have listen here:

TerraTech Podcast

And just because summer is just about over, I don’t plan on stopping the outdoor cooking, and the new challenges it brings on keeping that smoker low and slow on cold, windy winter days.

You can find more of my BBQ, Grilling and cooking photos on instagram.

A photo posted by Joseph Hoetzl (@jhoetzl) on

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Greenwood Lake Airshow 2015

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A few captures from the 2015 Greenwood Lake NJ airshow.  I love the challenge of getting the shutter speed slow enough to catch the prop blur, while using panning techniques to get a blurred background and a sharp subject.
That is no gremlin on the wing!

The 2015 FLS Microjet piloted by Justin "Shmed" Lewis

Wingwalking in the sunset

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Black and White Challenge – Day 5 of 5

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I was nominated for the black and white challenge by Scott Wyden Kivowitz. The deal is that for 5 days you must post a black and white image and each day nominate another photographer to do the same.
Today is day 5 of 5 for me. Today I will nominate Marc Sadowski for the challenge.

This is a photo of my dad.  Since many post photos of their loved ones when they die, let me start by saying dad is alive!

This guy, my dad, has taught me so much in life, and especially in photography.  From watching him shoot in his garage/basement studio, to explaining lighting back when I was playing with Pixar Typestry (on a woefully underpowered PC with probably a 486 DX2 and not enough RAM), he has always been the best photography instructor I could ask for.  So I only found it fitting, to complete this challenge with a portrait of him. I took this in 2012, when he was explaining something about lighting in my basement studio.  He is a massive fan of black and white photography, especially film, which he still shoots today.

Thank You Dad!

A black and white photo of My Dad

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