Thomas Merker

Thomas Merker was born and raised in Hamburg in 1958. During his school years he starts with b&w photography. Themes: Landscape, architecture, punk in London, jazz concerts and he shoots his first S-8 short films. He spends the nights in the photo lab of his advanced art course in school.

After graduating from high school, he studies documentary film at the Munich Film Academy (HFF) starting in 1978. His goal remains cinematography, although there is not yet a separate department for it. He collaborates on many student projects, including those of Roland Emmerich. He works as a camera assistant for DOP Helge Weindler (Munich) and Ennio Guarnieri (Rome). In 1984 he realizes his HFF-graduation film, a road movie on Route 66, USA. His films at the HFF were broadcasted by German television.
With director Harald Reinl he supervises an HFF group production and from then on is requested for workshops and student supervision.

From 1982 he shoots one the first German video clips with co-student director Michael Bentele, 1983-1987 as a camera operator for the music video show 'Formel Eins'. There he portrays many international musicians & bands with his SX-70 Polaroid camera and is co-editor of the 'Formel Eins'-book.

In 1985 he photographs the 'Das Go! Project', the first feature film by director Oliver Hirschbiegel. Since then he has been on the road as a picture-creating cinematographer for numerous cinema & TV films, series, short films, commercials and documentaries in over 20 countries.

For the b/w film 'Night' (directed by Maris Pfeiffer), he received the award 'Best Cinematography' in Krakow/Poland in 1989, as well as 'Best Lighting' in Taiwan. In 2000 he is nominated for the German Television Award for the film 'The Soloist' (directed by Carlo Rola) with Iris Berben and Thomas Kretschmann.

Since 1993 he has been a lecturer at the Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg for the departments of cinematography, production, production design and for the animation institute. He is a member of the colloquium for the entrance examinations as well as the diploma examination board and has been an honorary professor in the Cinematography department since 2017.

Other teaching positions at HfG Karlsruhe, HFF Munich, Bayerische Akademie für Fernsehen (BAF), SAE, Macromedia and Al Jazeera Training Center in Qatar.