Author Archives: Zach Horton

Zach Horton A34 Submission

by Zach Horton

I know many/most of you from the Dragon Folio, but this is my first submission in Folio A.  I’m happy to be here with you all! I’ve submitted four completely unrelated slides…

Jess and Jon: Pond

This was candid shot I snapped while visiting my sister and her husband in New Hampshire toward the end of the winter. They took a moment to escape our full family and contemplate their favorite pond together. They didn’t know I took this until I presented a slide to them as a gift. This is an M-Chrome, so I could afford to give a copy away and keep a copy for myself!

Camera: Mercury Stereo 12
Lens: Mamiya 65mm
Film: 65mm 250D cine film (IMAX)

Atom Smasher “Love You”

This is the ruined remains of the Westinghouse Atom Smasher, which pushed the boundaries of atomic energy research in the 1940s. The Mamiya 55mm lens is one of my favorites.

Camera: Mercury Stereo 12
Lens: Mamiya 55mm
Film: Fujichrome RMS

 

Cranes

I hope this hyper blows your mind!  Be warned!  The main subject here is mounted perfectly legally, but by the background it exceeds normal on-film deviation, and the general level of complexity of this image can really confuse the brain. Some people can’t fuse this comfortably, but it is one of my recent favorites.  This was shot on the special BW IMAX film that Kodak made for the film Oppenheimer. The production gifted me the remaining stock.  It’s a joy to work with, and makes excellent M-Chromes, which is of course its purpose: to be contact printed into prints for cinematic exhibition. Only in writing this post have I realized that I submitted my first version of this slide, with an open mask. I later created another copy and masked it to a shorter vertical, which really helps. Oops- I put the older version into the folio!  Oh well.

Camera: Rollei 6006
Lens: 150mm
Film: 65mm Double-X cine film (IMAX)

 

Magic Bus

This was just a casual snap on my way to work one day, but my partner Vicky and I just love the color in this one (which I can’t seem to replicate in the digital scan). This is shot on Kodak’s amazing 500T cinema film, in 65mm IMAX form, using one of my favorite MF3D lenses, the Super Angulon 47mm. This is another M-Chrome.

Camera: Mercury Stereo 12
Lens: Super Angulon 47mm
Film: 65mm 500T cine film (IMAX)

 

Zach Horton’s D25 Submissions

by Zach Horton

I tried to provide a variety of subjects in this submission. All are taken with a Mercury Stereo 12, with a variety of lenses.  And perhaps most interestingly, none of these are shot on contemporary slide films.  Three of the four are shot on negatives and printed to slides using M-Alchemy‘s new M-Chrome process, while one is shot on 40-year old Ektachrome 64!

Split

Part of a “cinematic” series I shot in 2023, this image was taken in an impossibly tight space with the 47mm Super Angulon lens, one of my absolute favorites. This is Kodak 250D cinema film pushed to 1600 ISO, printed by M-Alchemy into slide form.  This is an example of a shot that wouldn’t be feasible with slide film; the color would be far off, detail would be gone, and the exposure would be far too long for human subjects. A lot of dramatic license is taken in this narrative image; I hope you find it interesting!

Fall Canopy

Here I tried to capture different colors at different heights of this tree. While this would have worked just fine with slide film, I wanted to test the M-Chrome process (negative to slide printing) for color saturation, and was quite pleased with the result. 80mm lenses.

Circulation

If M.C. Escher was an urban designer? This was a real infrastructure project in my neighborhood that I stumbled across one day. I thought such a bizarre subject deserved some retro film, and shot it on 70mm Ektrachrome 64 that expired in the 1980s. 55mm lenses.

Canoe

I shot this deep in the Amazon jungle, about 8 hours (by car and canoe) from the nearest modern infrastructure or town. The Wairani people have very little contact with “modern” communities, and retain many of their traditional ways. Here a family was kind enough to take me on a canoe ride to their home. This negative went through hell, but I still thought it would be interesting to make an M-Chrome of it. 65mm lenses, ISO 400-800 (I can’t remember exactly).

Zach Horton’s D24 submissions

by Zach Horton

Interiors

Part of a “cinematic,” semi-narrative series.

Model: Anna Fischer
Location: Cathedral of Learning, Pittsburgh, PA.
Camera: Mercury Stereo 12
Film: Provia 100

Victoria Chuah

Experiment with a foreshortened depth plane.  Portrait of the multi-talented Victoria Chuah, currently (2022-23) Miss Virginia.  This was my first shoot with the earliest working prototype of the Mercury Stereo 12.  As a result of this shoot I discovered that one of the shutters was off, resulting in different exposures, but I include this image anyway, since I love it as an experiment.

Location: Pittsburgh, PA.
Camera: Early prototype of Mercury Stereo 12
Film: Velvia 50

Trumpeter Birds

These incredible birds were semi-domesticated by a Wairani family deep in the Amazon.  I had to react in a split second when the one in the foreground momentarily displayed its feathers to me.  This was the only time I ever saw this happen.  I was able to get this shot only because of the zone focusing of the Stereo 12.  It was one of a number of experiences that convinced me of how useful that system is for impromptu and action shots! I am lunging forward and onto the ground while taking this shot, resulting in the skewed horizon.  Not a perfect shot, technically, but one I’m proud of, given the extreme difficulty of capturing this rare moment in the jungle.

Location: Amazon jungle, Ecuador
Camera: Mercury Stereo 12
Film: E100

 

Jungle Path

This path down to the river was built by a Wairani family deep in the Amazon jungle.  I shot this with a Stereo 12 on a tripod, not cha cha.  However, I exposed the left and right sides sequentially rather than simultaneously, to try to capture the play of the shimmering light at the time.  Because of the tripod and otherwise static scene, only the light on the ground is different, producing the shimmering effect.  This concludes my experimental slide set!

Location: Amazon jungle, Ecuador
Camera Mercury Stereo 12
Film: E100