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Matinee: 'Beyond the Lens: Lance Mercer'
6 May 2023
Saturday matinees long ago let us escape from the ordinary world to the island of the Swiss Family Robinson or the mutinous decks of the Bounty. Why not, we thought, escape the usual fare here with Saturday matinees of our favorite photography films?
So we're pleased to present the 499th in our series of Saturday matinees today: Beyond the Lens: Lance Mercer.
This 7:33 production by Ryan Cory profiles Seattle photographer Lance Mercer who has made a career covering the punk scene.
Fittingly, the sound track includes music from Soundgarden, Green River, U-Men, Mad Season and Mother Love Bone.
But the video opens with a single off-screen question. "Why did you get into photography?"
From there, it's Mercer's show. He reveals his love of film and contact sheets over the digital experience. But it all started, he says, with a keen desire to be a photographer. A war photographer.
Which makes him laugh now.
Fortunately he really fell in love with punk rock when he was 13, long before he could go to war. Inspired by punk's just-do-it ethos, he turned his concert going into a career as a concert photographer at the age of 17.
It was that love for the music that drove the development of his craft, he tells us. He describes learning how to shoot a show, how to use his body to capture a shot, how to be where he needed to be to get the band and the crowd in the same shot.
At this point in his career, looking through his archive at the results of his work inspires him. "I shot some stuff," he says, pleased.
Indeed he did.